In Love Again
by Girl in Blue
Summary: “I love you, I want to marry you, I want to have children with you.” Danny said quickly, in desperation. He felt Sam go rigid under his embrace and slightly pale when he said the last part. Complete!
1. Chapter 1

**In Love Again**

_**Chapter One**_

Two Weeks After College Classes Started

"What are you talking about, Danny?" Sam asked, eyes filled with tears, as she sat down on her bed with her boyfriend standing there, staring at her regretfully. They were in the apartment she had bought when she got accepted in Yale.

"I'm sorry, Sam…" Danny whispered gently at her, tucking her hair behind her ear like he had always done. It was like that simple act was his; nobody else tucked her hair like that. That gesture only made her cry harder and clutch to him tightly.

"I'm sorry I can't be stronger…" She sobbed into his shirt.

"I'm not asking that of you." Danny said, caressing her back gently. "You cry all you want; I'll be here for you today." He tried not to show her that he was crying too.

Danny and Sam were eighteen years old. They had dated since they were sixteen and their relationship was everything they could ask for. They were two complete idiots in love and they were happy because of it.They were blindto the world outside. Like every relationship, their love matured as they grow older. They got used to each other's presence and the passion slowly died down. They wouldn't run to make out in the janitor's closet anymore. They wouldn't visit each other in the middle of the night and they wouldn't call each other unless they had something to say.

When Sam got accepted in Yale she knew it meant the end of their relationship. When they started lacking passion, she knew it was coming to an end, she was surprised it lasted that long. Danny needed a girl that would always be there for him, that he would worship and be equally treated. He wasn't the type that would wait for a girlfriend who was studying miles away. He was too anxious for action, for passion, to wait for her. Sam didn't blame him, because it was his personality and he wouldn't change it by risking his happiness.

She never blamed him and she never would. Their goals weren't the same anymore and it wasn't their fault. Unfortunately kids must grow older and sometimes, in order to do that, they had to sacrifice the dearest things to them like a teddy bear, a fairy tale book and the first girlfriend.

"I'll never stop caring about you, Danny." Sam said. "And I hope we'll meet again, someday." She bit her lip and leaned up to kiss the lips that she was about to renounce.

"I'm looking forward to it." He grinned and then his smile subsided and Sam's tears became more desperate as she struggled to say something very hard. "What is it?"

"Since this is our last day together…" She started. "Would you… would you… be with me?"

"You mean… like… like sleeping together?" He asked, nervously and she nodded. She didn't dare smile and not even blink. She concentrated on his face; she tried to read his thoughts.

"I'm not sure, Sam…" Danny sighed, sitting down by her side, putting his head on his hands. "I'm supposed to be letting you go… if we do it…"

"I'm not asking you for another chance." Sam replied quickly. "I'm not asking for feelings, just the action."

"You're asking me to sleep with you without feelings?" Danny asked, saying it just to taste the words on his mouth. It wasn't what he expected from Sam. He never thought she'd make such a request.

"Most boys wouldn't think twice." She laughed sarcastically through tears. She sounded desperate, but she didn't care. Sex had never really worked for them, not in the way she thought it was supposed to. She had to grab the last chance she had to make it work.

Before Danny could answer, the room had gone quieter. He looked up to Sam's face and blushed, something that hadn't happened in a long time while being with her. He gave her a small smile and stroked her hair softly; he couldn't deny her last request as his girlfriend. He could never deny her anything, really. Sam was the most special person to him.

She opened her mouth to ask again, but Danny knew it wasn't necessary. He had already made up his mind. He leaned forward capturing her lips in a gentle kiss. Danny licked her lips asking entrance and she opened them gladly. She moaned softly against his mouth and he gently pushed her against the mattress. The gentleness faded away introducing the desperate passion that they hadn't experienced for months.

The room was growing warmer and the fact that it was very hot day didn't help on the matter. He slid his hand over her body taking off her shirt. He didn't know how to satisfy her, he never really did. He didn't even remember how to breathe.

She would've regretted if she let him go without one last time, one last dance to stay in her memory. It only made it harder to let him go away, but at least she had no regrets. And it was the first time she had actually felt what sex was all about.

One Week before University Graduation. 

The Fine Arts Course with BA on Journalism had lasted four years. Sam was officially an adult now and she still had a childish fear of going back to Amity Park. She had seen Danny and Tucker the last time one year ago. It still hurt to know that they wouldn't call her as often as they did before. It hurt to know that she wasn't needed in their daily activities.

When you get in High School and make friends you are so sure that those friendships will last forever that you barely think about losing them. Your friends are so loyal, so funny and their feelings look so real that they look like they'll be there forever. And then you get into college. You make new friends and you learn how to party. Your high school friends look like mere children play near those crazy dudes that hang naked on the chandelier and look good doing it!

College is the perfect time to try new things and not look like an idiot for doing that. It is the time when you learn what being liberal really means. You laugh pathetically when you look back in your high school days and remember that you felt proud for buying a bottle of booze and share it with ten friends. Now, you're in college you can get high for fifteen hours straight with an ecstasy pill and realize it is not as great as everyone tells you.

The last week of college is really depressing. You remember everything you didn't do. Everything you should have done. You remember you won't see the naked dude anymore and you can't get high without looking like a loser. You will return to your old city to see your parents and meet with the high school friends and think they are better than you are. You will need a job because it's ridiculous to be twenty one and let your parents support you.

Sam had been a total loner during college. She had one friend, one good friend, which happened to be a boy, who happened to be gay. His name was Jude and he taught her that her right color was green; that her hair looked better down and her eyebrows were beautiful when designed properly. Sam did everything he said and soon they were closer than she and Danny had ever been.

Jude was the one that comforted her when she started crying because of her never-ending attraction for Danny. He had spent a whole night holding her when she found out Danny had gotten himself another girlfriend, which counted three girls in less than a month. She cried and asked where her naïve Danny had gone while Jude assured her it was going to pass because girls nowadays were too alike, in homogeny, completely boring. Jude assured her it was the reason Danny had jumped from girl to girl, because nobody would satisfy him as she had.

"It is just an adventure… he'll eventually go back to you."

She feared Danny had become unreachable; that they wouldn't recognize each other anymore as best friends; that their friendship would be forever a memory of those schooling days that had to pass.

But as the rough breakup became just an episode in her life, as time passed and her heart healed, it didn't hurt anymore, she still thought a lot about him, but she convinced herself that the reason why she couldn't forget him was because he had been her friend for most part of her life, she was used having him around. She wasn't attracted to him anymore, but she still worried about him because he was her friend.

She was sitting in her room, watching TV when the door opened. Jude walked inside looking radiant. His smile could only mean one thing and that thing was what made Sam's day brighter.

"He said yes!" Sam squeaked, jumping on his lap. "Congratulations!"

Jude held her up while she wrapped legs and arms around him like a small child on their parent's lap. He laughed and turned around, dancing without music around the room. Jude was tall and very athletic. Thousands of girls drooled over him and he didn't act like he was into boys. Nobody would guess he was gay.

"Now I can say I have the most handsome boyfriend ever!" Jude laughed, still spinning her around.

"So, are you moving in together next week?" Sam asked, as he settled her on the ground again.

"Not yet, he said next week we'll see our families and rest. After that we can think about buying our house somewhere in New York."

"Sometimes I wish I could take you to Amity Park with me." Sam said, "I'm going to need support when I face everybody again. I think Danny and Tucker changed a lot."

"You know what you tell Danny when you see him?" Jude asked, smirking naughtily at her. "You tell him your college life was great! That you had sex with every single guy on campus, that you had sex with one while hanging on the chandelier."

"And of course, he would believe me." Sam answered sarcastically.

"Honey, when you see that Danny boy promise me you'll torture him for what he did to you. You must be proud. You must show him you're not that little girl he dated anymore. You must light his fire again." Jude said. "Show him you're a powerful woman now."

"Do you think he found somebody else?" Sam asked, sitting on her bed, facing Jude quietly. She never really talked about her fears… somehow she had hoped Danny hadn't found anybody else.

"It's probable… I mean… guys live for that, don't they?"

Sam didn't answer. She hoped Danny wasn't like that.

The Christmas before Kyle

Sam, who was sixteen years old, was sitting alone by the piano playing Beethoven's _Für Elise_. It was a snowy day and she couldn't go out. Her parents were in a trip through Europe and they called totell herMerry Christmas. They had given her gift two weeks earlier, it was a convertible BMW. Sam thought it was absurd to give a girl who was starting her driving lessons in a few weeks an expensive car like a BMW. Sam knew she was going to crash that car a few times before she considered herself a good driver.

Tucker had called to wish her a Merry Christmas, to and he was the one that told her that nobody could make across the street because of the heavy snowstorm that had been falling since that morning. It was about five in the afternoon and Danny hadn't called, yet. Sam was bored with her lonesome Christmas.

She was still in her warm pajamas with a blanket over her lap and a cup of eggnog (the only edible thing she could cook in the kitchen) on top of her beloved piano. She felt the temperature drop in the room and stopped playing, looking around for her best friend.

"What are you doing?" Danny Phantom materialized in front of her with a grin. He hadn't seen that she was playing; she had stopped just in time.

"Spending my time." She grinned, turning around and to face him. Danny transformed back in his human form and didn't look very warm in his sweater and pants. "Did you fly straight from your house?"

"Yeah, I thought I couldn't be cold in my ghost form… looks like I was wrong. It's chilly out there!" Danny said. "Anyway, I came to wish you a Merry Christmas and to give you this." He put in her hands a CD that he recorded on his computer with Sam's favorite songs.

"Oh my goodness, Danny!" She said when she read the small menu Danny wrote "You got Bjork and PJ Harvey's version of Satisfaction!"

"That was quite hard to find." He grinned.

"Thank you so much." She stood up, hugging him tightly. "Oh, I'm so stupid, you're freezing!" She noticed when her cheek touched his. "Let's find you a blanket and light the fireplace. Would you like some eggnog?"

"Only if it is your 'special' eggnog." He smiled. By 'special' he meant the eggnog Sam would make when she was alone in her house, a recipe she found out in the internet where she mixed the drink in chocolate liquor. It wasn't enough to make them drunk, but would warm up quickly.

"That's the one in that cup, there's more in the thermos right there. I think it's enough to both of us." Sam smiled. "Wait here and I'll get you a blanket."

While Sam went looking for a blanket Danny poured himself a cup of eggnog and amused himself by touching the piano keys without getting anything out that would sound like music. Sam came back with huge blankets and two pillows.

"Are you in a hurry? We could watch movies together." She suggested, throwing him the blanket.

"Only if it is a thriller." Danny said. He had been the victim of Sam's erudite taste too many times to not learn his lesson. Once she had invited him to watch Cries and Whispers by a Sweden director called Ingmar Bergman and he slept through the whole film. 'It's a classic!' She had said. 'There's no action, no soundtrack!' Danny replied.

"Fine, I think my parents bought some useless thrillers last time they were here…. Oh yeah, Dead Men Land, have you seen it?"

"Nope." He picked the blanket while Sam grabbed the cups and they headed downstairs to watch the bloody zombie movie.

When the movie started, Danny had already put the blankets on the ground andpushed pillows together. Sam blushed when she noticed he had made a king sized bed in the middle of her theater. He grinned when he saw her reluctance in lay down next to him.

"Come on, it's cold! Like this we can share more blankets and stay warmer." Danny pouted cutely. Sam laughed at his ridiculous excuse to cuddle with her.

"I can't believe how forward you are today." She smiled, taking her slippers off and laying down next to him, but before she could get comfortable (she was as far from Danny as the blanket allowed) the phone started ringing. "Stop the movie, please." She said, standing up once again and answering the phone. "Hello? Oh, hello, Mrs. Fenton." Sam looked to Danny over her shoulder and saw him slapping himself in the head. He probably had forgotten to tell his mother he was going to visit her. "Yes, he's here, Mrs. Fenton, would you like to talk to him? Ok."

Sam walked back to the blankets and gave Danny the phone. He looked like he was about to get grounded.

"Hey, mom… yeah, I forgot to tell you, I'm sorry… No, the storm wasn't that bad when I left… fine, I'll stay over until it stops… yeah, Sam gave me a hot drink and blankets… MOM!... Listen mom, I gotta go, we're watching a movie… yes, I will. Bye." He handed Sam the phone. "Looks like I'll have to stay until the storm is over." He sighed. "I wish I could tell her about my ghost powers, she wouldn't be so worried, then."

"You can tell her, Danny." Sam put the phone aside and lay down next to him. Danny was looking at the ceiling as if it would give him an answer to his problems. "Your parents may be obsessed with ghosts but they care about you. It is not like my parents who are so caught up in themselves that barely see me. Your mom will understand."

"Yeah…" Danny smiled at her, wrapping his arms around her. He knew he was freaking her out when he pulled her so close that she was pillowed on his chest.

"Danny, what are you doing?" Sam asked. She knew that whatever he was trying to do with her it was beyond what friendship grounds permitted.

"Holding you." He answered simply.

"Danny…" She called his name in a warning tone. She liked his caring side, but at the moment she was thinking he had been overshadowed.

She couldn't believe how ironic the situation was. She had a crush on Danny during her fourteen years. By the time she was fifteen she accepted that he would never see her as more than friend, so she moved on.

Her first real kiss (she never counted the fake-out make-outs Dash's and Tucker's kisses) had been with a Goth boy she had met once. She had gone out with him for two weeks, while Danny was squirming in jealously and Tucker looked more concerned that the Goth boy was even more depressed than Sam had ever been.

The relationship didn't last more than that single week. Tucker was glad, Sam was indifferent and Danny was relieved. After that week Danny had been holding her, kissing her cheek and spending more time with her than he ever had before.

Sam had taken his actions as a sweet apology for his jealousy and relief for getting her to hang out with the trio once again. She had taken it like that until that moment when Danny started holding her like that. Danny's fear of losing her to someone else had led them to where they were now. Sam was glad he acted like he cared and he was happy to just hold her and be comfortable with her like he had never been before.

But nothing had really happened, he just held her the whole night until they fell asleep in each other's arms. And from that day on they had become so comfortable around each other, that touching wouldn't be weird anymore.

First Day back in Amity Park

On the road, on a sunny day, Sam drove her convertible BMW all the way back home. Her heart was beating quicker than usual from the moment she got into her car. She had a pair of sunglasses on and a white sunny hat that Jude had given her.

The sign 'Amity Park – a nice place to live' came into view after five hours of car ride three days after she left Yale. Sam was torn between the relief of having finally arrived (her back was killing her) and the wish of having the distance being twice longer.

She was going to see Danny and it frightened her.

Danny was on his way to Tucker's house and the shortest way there was passing through Sam's old house. Danny always looked at that house as a memory of his good times with Sam, when they used to hang around each other as friends and as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Those were his sweet and naïve times. Which boy didn't kiss his first girlfriend and thought it would be forever? Which boy hadn't made marriage plans with his first girlfriend? Which hadn't fantasized about their children?

Danny laughed at how naïve his mind was back in his teenage years. Thank goodness for college life turning you into an experienced adult. He couldn't call himself adult; he was in that thin line between boy and man also known as 'the early twenties'. It was the time he was starting his life, still with teenage hopes of a bright future and the freedom of still being supported by his parents in case he got fired.

No responsibilities, no ties, no compromise. Just fun. He had until his twenty five years old to face life as a big ride in a rollercoaster , after that, he'd have to literally grow up… but he still had more three years to go.

There was another thing. Danny was very popular. How did it happen? He blew his cover. Danny was stupid enough to go ghost inside a classroom in the third week of college. The classroom just happened to be monitored by a security camera and the next day he was all over Amity Park newspaper.

Maddie and Jack Fenton were in shock for several days, but finally their love for Danny was bigger than their ghost obsession. Danny was glad to have his parents to understand and finally he could get more help inside his own home. His parents developed weapons and other things that were very handy in battles. Danny let them study his ghost abilities and by doing that the Fenton's became much richer than they had ever been.

Amity Park College happened to be just like Casper High with most of the students, Paulina, Valerie, Star, Courtney, Amanda etc. etc. If Danny had been a loser in high school he was more popular than Dash and Kwan in college. And his grades weren't that bad either. His first adventures with girls had been traps, girls would come to him all sexy and would get him to do anything with them. Of course, Danny had turned it around and now he was the one trapping girls.

Tucker got his share of popularity as well and both boys had their dream come true: a date with a new girl every weekend. What did the girls think about it? They were very happy to have dated the gorgeous Danny Phantom.

Danny smiled sadly when he reminded of Sam, his first girlfriend. She'd be very disappointed to see that he was using her Carpe Diem ideal to seize girls along with the day. But Danny didn't regret breaking up with her; he couldn't be faithful to her while she was miles away from him. He wouldn't have enjoyed college's irresponsible life if he was with her.

He wasn't a bad guy and he wasn't shallow when it came to girls, he was far from being a womanizer that would pick any random girl in the bar and take home for casual sex. He was just a guy with hormones and reckless like every boy who saw life as a big party. He was going to grow up with time. For now he was experimenting.

He realized how different things were in high school. He'd blush if he talked to a girl, he had treasured his first girlfriend like every guy did before noticing that girls weren't that hard to get.

Danny stopped dead on his tracks when he saw a very familiar BMW parked in front of the Manson's house. His heart skipped a beat. Sam was back. Her classes must have ended a weeks before his. He imagined her sad face when she realized he was very different from the sweet and naïve boy who had broken up with her four years ago.

He crossed the street to sneak a peek inside Sam's house in his ghost form. He saw her having a tea with her mother in the living room. Her mother was treating her like a guest and not like a daughter who was back to live in the same house with her again.

"So how were your grades?" Mrs. Manson asked.

"I aced most of my tests." Sam replied. "I got a job proposal. I have all summer to consider it." Sam's mother looked very interested in the subject. "It isn't anywhere near here. If I accept I'll have to move to L.A."

"That's amazing!" Mrs. Manson said. "What's holding you back?"

Sam didn't reply; she just stared at her tea. Danny felt his heart being squeezed. Sam came back to come clear with him, possibly to say goodbye for good. He panicked.

Danny quickly flew out of Sam's house and sped up toward Tucker's house. Sam had become Miss Perfect while he and Tucker were the impulsive rebel males. Their group wasn't over, but it had given a total 180° turn. The gothic had gone normal and the geeks became popular.

"Tucker, Sam is back!"

**Here's the sequel... I know, you were expecting a fluffy fanfic with details of Danny and Sam's romance, but... well, I just like to torture the characters, I can't help it,I am sadistic! Nothing that comes too easily is valuable enough. Keep that in mind. I know that you want to see how their relationship was and don't worry, I'll tease you readers with flashbacks. You'll understand everything, just be patient. **

**Thanks Rae you rock!**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Chapter Two_**

Second Day Back in Amity Park

Sam had woken up in her old king sized bed and taken a long bubble bath in her old bathroom. She put on a jean skirt, a sleeveless tank top, and boots (not her old combat boots). It was a simple outfit just to take a walk in her old city and see what had changed.

The walk didn't go very far. She stopped on her way downtown when she realized her favorite CD shop had become a fancy café. If there was one think she learned in Yale that she'd take for life, was that she'd never let pass a good coffee it didn't matter the price.

Sam sat in the café in a table for two people, facing the glass window, which gave her a good view of the crowed street. She ordered a cappuccino and saw, amazed that the waitress was an old maid that used to work in her house.

"Mrs. Stone?" Sam asked, a bit unsure.

"Sam?" The woman smiled. "Dear child, you're back!"

"Why are you working here?" Sam asked confused. "Did my mom do something?" Mrs. Stone was the best maid Sam had ever had; she had raised Sam while her parents were away in their business and vacation trips. It was unacceptable the possibility of her mother having fired the poor woman.

"So, I take it you still don't know about it." Mrs. Stone smiled sadly at Sam. "I'm going to get your cappuccino and I'll tell you everything, child."

Mrs. Stone words troubled Sam for the next three minutes until she returned with the order and a tea for herself.

"I knew your parents wouldn't tell you so soon…" Mrs. Stone said, sitting down in front of Sam.

"Tell me already." Sam said, "The suspense is killing me!"

"Very well, a month ago your parents had a terrible fight." Mrs. Stone said. "Your father left the house and I told your mother she shouldn't have treated him the way she did and she fired me." Mrs. Stone said.

"You're saying that my father is gone for a whole month?" Sam asked, incredulously. "My mother didn't say anything."

"Well, they fought because she didn't want to sign the divorce papers. I overheard their conversation when I was delivering them some tea." Mrs. Stone explained and she'd have continued if she didn't notice Sam's eyes filling up with tears.

"They're getting divorced!" Sam tried to hold the tears back, after all she never cried in public. The woman in front of her was the only person except her parents and Danny that had seen her cry. "Why didn't they say anything? I was with my mom the whole day yesterday!" Sam put her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably.

"I thought they had told you, you poor child." Mrs. Stone reached for Sam let the girl cry in her arms. "I'm so sorry… I didn't know."

"It's okay; it's not your fault." Sam managed to give her a small smile. "It's just that I don't know why they didn't tell me. They should have called me."

"This is a delicate situation, maybe they were waiting for the right time." Mrs. Stone tried to push Sam towards the step of forgiving her parents, she knew Sam too well to know that she was hard at forgiving people, even her parents.

"Have you seen my friends?" Sam tried to change the subject after a long and uncomfortable silence. "Danny? Tucker?"

"Danny is a charming young man." Mrs. Stone said. "He comes here quite often with Tucker. I think it is because of the Tech Store that opened in the next corner. This is the nearest place for a snack, I guess."

"Has he changed?" Sam asked, drying her eyes and smiling when her thoughts were filled with images of Danny, his face, his puns, his kisses.

"Well, it has been fours years." Mrs. Stone stood up. "Everybody changes and now, if you excuse me, I have to get back to work my boss is giving me threatening looks already."

"Okay, it was great talking to you, Mrs. Stone." Sam said, also standing up and placing ten dollars on the table. "I'll come back and visit you." She hugged the old woman like she hugged her grandmother.

"I'll look forward to it." Mrs. Stone said.

Sam broke the hug and stepped outside. Sam wanted to visit Danny and Tucker, but she was too scared to face them so soon. She decided to take a walk around the park before finally going to meet them.

She didn't expect to see them sitting there, talking freely about their lives.

Danny sat with Tucker under a tree in the park looking very nervous.

"I swear, Tucker, she's back! I saw her car yesterday when I was going to your house!" Danny said, looking around frantically. "What about we give her a welcome party? We could introduce her to our friends."

"Do you think she'd like the guys we're hanging around with?" Tucker asked. "She has never been a social person…"

"Well, we introduce them and if she's not comfortable we let her go, simply like that." Danny said. "I hope she's going to stay for a while, I really missed talking to her."

"We could call everybody to the club tomorrow night." Danny said. "Sam must enjoy clubs, I mean; she must have gone to some in her university, right?"

"Goth Clubs, probably." Tucker replied, he looked up and saw a familiar feminine figure walking towards them. He gulped and poked Danny. "Oh my…"

"She's looks different." Danny said aloud, without thinking. Sam gave him a small shy smile when she heard him and continued walking towards her two best friends.

"So, how have you been?" She asked, dropping on her knees right in front of them and giving them a bone-crushing hug that both returned very enthusiastically.

When Danny's arms wrapped around her, Sam felt the familiar sensation of having her boyfriend hugging her. She hated to admit it, but she had missed his embrace, she had dreamed about his hugs since their breakup. She fought very hard to not let him notice how badly she had needed that sweet embrace.

"It's so good to see you, Sam." Danny said, hesitantly letting go of her and let her sit down. "How have you been?"

"Perfect." Sam smiled. "I'm finally into Arts business." She smiled. "How are you?"

"I'm enjoying the time of my life." Danny grinned. "College is amazing, don't you agree?"

"It's fun." Sam smiled, pretending it didn't hurt her. She didn't want Danny to be having fun without her. She had hoped he would tell her he missed being with her, that life had been hell without her, that she was the only girl for him. To know that he was having fun without her bruised her pride completely. "I grew up there." Sam said. "I learned more about life than I had thought I would."

"Yeah, we learned about life, too, didn't we, Tuck?" Danny laughed, putting one arm around Sam like he always had done. Tucker laughed, too. Their behavior made Sam frown slightly. She studied their faces and realized that they weren't the same sweet boys she had left behind. "Anyway, Sammy, why aren't you dressing black?"

"I'm not a Goth anymore." Sam said, taking Danny's arms from around her. "At least not in my clothes, I'm still up to the philosophy, the depression and of course my aversion of sunlight and mornings."

"Depression?" Tucker echoed, as if it sounded completely foreign to him. "You've always been cheerful for a Goth and you were the happiest person I knew when you and Danny were dating."

"Well," Danny grinned. "She believes she's suffers of depression," He looked at Sam who blushed, "but as far as I am aware of she's miles away from it."

'You don't know how much it hurts to sit here and smile for you, Danny Fenton…' Sam thought bitterly. "I'm not discussing the current state of my mind with you two." She replied, smiling smartly. "Tell me everything about College!"

"Everything? Well, it's pretty much like High School." Tucker said. "The same people, same struggle to keep the grades up…"

"Not everything is the same, Tucker." Danny smiled. "We're finally popular!"

"Really?" Sam replied, incredulously. "But… how? I thought you were doomed to the hell of geek life for the rest of your schooling days!"

"Very funny." Danny replied, sarcastically (he learned from the best). "But, actually it happened because I wasn't careful enough."

"Careful…? Oh gosh, Danny! Please don't tell me you revealed your secret identity!"

"I was caught on the security camera!" Danny said. "But it wasn't that bad, now I'm known as the city protector and every girl totally wants to date me!"

"Us." Tucker corrected.

"Yeah, us." Danny smirked.

Sam stared at the two of them incredulously. She thought Danny had completely forgotten that she had been his first girlfriend; that he had to have the decency of not talking about other girls in front of her because it would obviously hurt her.

She was going to make one of her usual sarcastic replies, the ones she used to make to get them to remember she was a girl and she was part of their group. But she didn't reply. She just stayed quiet and hoped Danny would take her silent hint and drop the subject.

She knew Danny wasn't doing that to hurt her. He was just acting around her normally, like he always had before they got together. It meant only one thing: Danny was over her and he didn't consider the possibility that she wasn't over him, yet. Who would anyway?

A wave of jealously invaded her. She realized what she was feeling and knew it was wrong. Sam was really different from Danny; she was introspective and knew how to control her emotions. If Danny was jealous he'd just walk to her and demand answers, but Sam, when she realized she was jealous, she knew she had no right to ask anything. She was his EX- girlfriend. As much as it hurt, she wouldn't be a burden and get on his way, he had the right to enjoy life the way he felt more comfortable with even if it hurt her. It wasn't her place to correct him.

To change the subject was everything she could do. She pushed the pain down her throat and smiled.

"So that was the only difference? Being popular?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Danny answered. He didn't notice she was lying. In the good old days he'd catch the smallest lie, he'd ask if there was something wrong and offer to be next to her. But it looked like four years were enough to make him forget how to catch her lies. He forgot she wouldn't look at him in the eye and that her smile wouldn't reach her eyes. "Wasn't your university like High School?"

"No, it was far from it." Sam smiled, "I met enough weirdoes for a lifetime there. They were all good people. I think it was the time I learned to not judge people by their appearance." Sam laughed. "There were the hippies, the punks, the preps, the junkies. And there was a thing in common: the love for art."

"Did you party?" Tucker asked, trying to hold his laugh. The thought of Sam partying like he and Danny did in college was so ridiculous.

"A few times, yeah…" She replied. "Don't tell anyone, but… I loved The Raves."

"Whoa, you've gone to rave parties?" Danny asked, really surprised. "Isn't it those parties that go on for days? Where everybody get high or drunk or both?"

"Exactly." Sam smiled, satisfied to see the concern back in his eyes. It meant he still cared for her at some point. "I always took someone to take care of me."

"Wait, but how was it? I mean, what did you do there?" Danny insisted, still worried.

"Well…" She smiled devilishly. She wasn't going to lie and yet she was going to do exactly what Jude had suggested. She was going to show Danny she wasn't the same person. "You can't exactly survive a rave without an ecstasy pill."

She enjoyed seeing Danny's jaw drop.

Six Years Ago

"Good morning!" Danny said when Sam, his beloved girlfriend, came out of her house like she did everyday so they could walk to school together. Danny kissed her quickly on the lips, getting her books from her hands to carry them for her. They had been dating only for a month and they were still very inexperienced around each other.

"Very good morning indeed." She smiled. "Do you remember which day it is today?"

"No… unless you want to celebrate our first month together…" Danny thought out loud. "Is it something really important that I should've remembered?" He asked, uncertainly.

"Not really, silly." Sam laughed, messing his hair. "But it should remind you." She took a paper from her pocket and showed it to him. It was an authorization from her grandmother that she was going to use to tattoo her back.

"I thought we had discussed this!" Danny glared her, slightly angry. "I do not approve it at all. You know a tattoo is forever."

"Yeah, but it is my body and my decision." Sam replied. "Are you going with me or do I have to go alone?"

"Of course I'll go with you." Danny said, returning the paper. "Do you think I'm going to let some psycho touch you when nobody's around?"

"You're cute." Sam said. "But sometimes your paranoia really freaks me out."

"Well, sorry for being concerned! I'm just your boyfriend, there's no need to pay attention to me!" Danny wasn't really angry; he just was exaggerating on purpose so that he'd get what he always did when Sam tried to calm him down. He crossed his arms and turned around, childishly faking an annoyed look. He heard Sam laugh, then he felt her arms sneaking around his neck and he saw when she showed up in front of him.

"When you want a kiss, you just need to ask." She always knew when he would exaggerate to get a kiss. She lifted herself in the tip of her toes so she could reach his lips. Danny had grown a lot. They were the same height until they were fourteen, after that she seemed to have stuck in 5 feet and 5 inches while he had gone up to 6 feet tall.

Danny smiled into the sweet kiss. He held her closer to him and responded happily, glad that it wasn't just a chaste kiss. His hands tightened around her waist and he lifted her off her feet while she held herself up with a firm grip on his shoulders. She broke the kiss, laughing at his goofy face. He always looked like he had his mind blown away whenever they kissed like that. And particularly, Sam loved that goofy face.

"Put me down, Danny or we'll be late." She said and Danny obediently set her back on her feet.

"You're right, Mr. Lancer will breathe fire if he knows that the reason we're always late is because we're making out." Danny grinned.

"Who said anything about Mr. Lancer?" Sam grinned, already seeing Danny slight suspicious of what she was about to say. "I'm ditching school today to make the tattoo."

"Yeah, of course you are." Danny rolled his eyes. "As if you wouldn't get enough trouble from your parents for making a tattoo, you have to be in trouble in school as well."

"Well, I am going with or without you." She said turning around and walking away from him, in her mind she counted 'Come on Danny, you know you owe me this… 3-2-1…'

"Sam!"

'I knew it!' She smiled and felt his hand slipping into hers.

"It isn't going to hurt you, right? I can't see blood." He said, slightly nervous.

"Well, there will be a bit of blood…" She said, sincerely and finally she decided to drop the teasing and let him know that he didn't have to go if he didn't want to. "I'm just teasing you, Danny, you can go to school, and I'll be there after lunch."

"No, I want to go with you." He answered, giving a reassuring squeeze in her hand.

"Okay… thanks."

But as soon as 'Mike', the tattoo guy, started tattooing Sam's lower back, Danny wished he hadn't gone at all. Sam sat on the chair and had to bend forward so that he could reach the right spot. Danny wished he could rip those artistic hands away from his girlfriend's skin and when he heard her cry in pain for the first time he thought he was going to punch that Mike guy to the ghost zone.

Sam complained that her back was hurting, so she asked Danny to sit in front of her and when he did, she leaned forward, lying on his lap for two more hours until the tattoo was finished. By the end, she had a beautiful three inches gothic cross on her lower back.

The tattooed skin was going to take a week to completely heal and Danny was already thinking that it looked far sexier than he had expected.

Sam hadn't returned to school in two days, complaining that it hurt when her shirts rubbed on the tattoo and Danny missed her like he hadn't seen her in two months. He laughed at himself when he realized how much in love he sounded.

He turned ghost and flew right through her window after escaping school. He saw her lying on her stomach, reading a book and listening to music. She was shirtless; she just had her bra on. He gulped and turned around, ready to leave her room when she called him out.

"Danny, I know you're there, you can come out now." Sam didn't look angry that he was spying on her when she was barely dressed. Danny thought she was going to be at least a little upset.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to spy on you." Danny said, still ashamed of being caught.

"Why are you so red?" Sam laughed. "You're my boyfriend; you're allowed to see me in my bra… besides you've done worse than that." She didn't move her position. Danny was the one who had to move around to look at her straight in the face.

"You mean it?" He asked, blushingly. Since she was lying on her stomach, he couldn't see much than her back, but even so the situation was still awkward for him. It was the first time she had allowed such intimacy. He had touched her through her clothes, but had never gone far than that…yet.

"Of course I do." Sam blushed, too. "Do you think I'm too forward?"

"Not at all!" He said quickly, sitting down in front of her, before she changed her mind and got herself covered. "So… does it still hurt?"

"Not much." She smiled. "Only when I put my shirt on, but I think I'll be fine tomorrow." She prompted herself up on her elbows and Danny tried very hard to keep his eyes from wandering lower, down her chest. "How does it look?"

"Uh…" Danny couldn't have died on the spot. She was talking about the tattoo right? "It's beautiful."

"Danny…" Sam said, teasingly. "You didn't even look at it." So she knew where he was looking at.

Danny gulped and turned to sit on her side, to stare at her back. She had a sexy back. She had all the right curves and her waist was thinner than he had ever noticed. Somehow she had a frail figure. She was so small and thin and yet she had a fire and power that he had only seen in the strongest heroes.

And for the tattoo… he dared touch Sam's back with a single finger at first. He traced the gothic cross with his index finger, feeling Sam go rigid under him touch. He grinned devilishly and continued his ministrations. He ran his finger up to her spine line and to her shoulders, seeing her shiver wherever he touched her.

Sam bit her lip and closed her eyes. Danny couldn't possibly know what he was doing to her. She arched her back slightly and felt as he planted a small wet kiss on her tattoo. She opened her eyes in shock. She wasn't expecting him to start kissing her like that. When she didn't protest, he placed another kiss, this time a bit higher and higher and higher until he was kissing her neck.

She turned around to meet his lips with hers, but they didn't go very far because at that moment Mr. Manson knocked on Sam's door.

"Honey, it is time to dinner!"

"I'll be down in a second." Sam answered. She turned to face Danny again and both blushed uncontrollably. "So… do you want to have dinner with us?"

"Uh… actually… I think I should get going." He said, he looked so red that Sam thought he was going to explode.

"Okay… I'll see you tomorrow." She smiled awkwardly.

"I'll see you…" He answered, he didn't dare to touch her for a goodbye kiss, he turned ghost and reluctantly left the room.

Second Day Back in Amity Park

Danny wasn't oblivious to the beautiful woman sitting quietly in front of him while Tucker talked about their goofiness in college. Danny caught a moment that Sam was distracted to study her form. Who could say that this wonderful woman had been his first girlfriend? She had developed quite nicely, she was more rounded, her legs looked longer and her – Danny gulped – breasts seemed to have grown a lot. Were they even real?

Sam caught him staring and Danny quickly looked away. He decided to pay attention to the conversation before he embarrassed himself again.

"…and then I found Mrs. Stone in a café and she told me everything. Really, I don't know why my mother didn't say anything." Sam said, looking slightly sad. "It looks like four years can change people more than I had expected."

Tucker didn't say anything and Danny didn't dare comment. Sam sighed and stood up.

"Where are you going?" Tucker asked, "I thought we were going to hang together today."

"I still have to find a hotel before it gets dark." Sam said. "I can't stay in my mother's house while she doesn't trust me."

"Why the hurry?" Danny asked, "You can stay with us for a while, if you want to." Danny offered.

"Yeah, it would be a good idea!" Tucker said.

"With you…?" Sam echoed, "Do you guys share a house or something?"

"An apartment" Danny smiled. "Three bedrooms. It is near college and Tucker and I just return to our parents in the weekends. You can stay with us if you want to."

"But Amity College isn't that far away." Sam said, puzzled; "Why would you get an apartment there if you could live with your parents?"

"Well…" Tucker blushed; he wasn't going to tell her exactly the reason why they decided to move nearer college. "By moving there we can arrive in the classroom in ten minutes, if we live here we'd have to drive all the way across town."

"You are so lazy." Sam said, standing up. "I'll have to get my things, then."

"We're going to help you." Danny said, standing up, too. "After all you'll need a guide to get to our place."

Sam smiled at their kindness. Maybe they hadn't changed so much after all.

**Yeah, Chapter Two up and my final college tests are approaching (my birthday, too! I'm going to be 21 and I can legally play on Las Vegas, lol). So, about this chapter, you see that there is a plot coming and complications as well. I really hope you like it. Please review and tell me what you think. **

**And once again, thanks to my great friend Rae!**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three**_

Seventh Day Back In Amity Park

How stupid can a person be? Sam was wondering when she stared at the ceiling of the guestroom of Danny and Tucker's apartment. She heard the banging on the wall and she wasn't naïve, she knew the cause of it was certain blonde girl who had walked inside Danny's room half an hour ago. She could tell they were trying to be quiet, but the only way she wouldn't hear it was if she was deaf or the walls were soundproof.

'Oh Danny… what has happened to you…' She wondered as unstoppable tears kept forming on her eyes. She had spent a whole week with him and she already knew he'd take anyone to bed. Where was that sweet halfa that used to be her best friend? Where was the adorable boy who had cried because she was in pain during their first time? What had college done to him? Could he ever be fixed?

There was another thing that was bothering her like a stab in the heart. The girls that flirted with Danny were beautiful, blondes, top models, drop-dead gorgeous. She started fearing that the reason why Danny had broken up with her was because she wasn't like _them_. She wasn't beautiful enough. She was plain and simple, like a girl he saw everyday and wouldn't pay attention to. She returned to Amity Park to see if she still had a chance with him and now he made it very clear that she didn't. The college wasn't the only reason for their breakup.

It was exactly 1am and she couldn't stay inside that apartment any longer. The mental images that banging on the wall was giving her weren't enough to bear. Did they think she could seriously sleep while they were at it?

'Where has my clueless Danny gone…?'

Was it possible that her sweet Danny was gone forever? This boy in the next room was an insult to females (well, maybe not to those shallow witches that gave themselves to him) an egomaniac who was living in an apartment that smelled of testosterone and cheap perfume.

'Why am I crying? This is so stupid! Why am I pinning over him? I can do better without him!'

She woke up the next day, not sure when she had fallen asleep. She had a terrible headache. She groaned and turned to the other side. The sunlight didn't let her get back to sleep and today was the last day Danny and Tucker would have classes. They were already up and doing a lot of noise.

She decided to stand up, she was wearing a short night shirt that wasn't very decent (well, Danny had seen everything already and Tucker was too much like a brother to even care). She exited her room and walked, groggily, all the way to the kitchen where she spotted Danny, fresh-showered and smelling like soap, finishing orange syrup for their pancakes.

"Good morning to you…and that's a very indecent night shirt." Danny said as soon as he saw how short it was. Sam sat down at the table and waited for him to serve her.

"It's not that it's news to you." She answered simply and bored. Danny raised an eyebrow at her.

"Are you okay?" He asked the same old standard question.

"I am and thanks for everything, I'm moving today." She took a sip of her apple juice and saw Danny quickly jump in front of her, looking scared that he might have done something wrong. For a second, Sam let her heart melt as she saw the old Danny flash in his eyes.

"What did I do?" He asked in a whisper, gently caressing her cheek. Sam was livid in a blink of eye. How dare he even flirt with her!

"It's not my place to tell you." She said. "I'm not hungry, by the way, I'm going to change and take a walk."

"Hey, wait!" Danny quickly transformed and flew in front of her, changing back with an agility that she had never witnessed before. "Tell me, because I want you to keep living here."

"I can't and I won't." Sam said. "I'm not staying in Amity Park for long anyway." She brushed past him and this time he really let her go. She bumped into Tucker who had just walked out of the shower.

"See, dude? I told you my new soap would make all chicks come straight to me." Tucker laughed, holding Sam affectionately. "And you, girl, why the long face?"

"Horrible night, that's all. I'll see you guys later." Sam quickly entered her room to change leaving both Danny and Tucker wondering what had gone wrong.

"Oh, shit!" Sam heard Danny curse through the door. He probably had realized what he had done. She took her night shirt off and opened the wardrobe to find some comfortable clothes for a walk to the library, but Danny decided to phase into the room. "I am so sorry, Sam." He said, not looking away when he realized she was wearing only her panties.

"Danny, get out!" She said, trying to over herself.

"Hey, you said yourself that it's nothing new to me." He grinned, but Sam wasn't on the mood for jokes.

"Get out of here right now, Danny!"

"Fine. I was a jerk, okay? I'm sorry." He turned around and that seemed to make her shut up and bear his presence. "Can I compensate you somehow?"

"Danny, this is your apartment and you can do whatever you want here, it's not like you owe me an apology." Sam said, quickly getting dressed.

"But still. Listen, let me take you to a party tonight, what do you think?" Danny said, sounding like he really regretted being so impolite.

"I already got business tonight, Danny." Sam said, tying her shirt in place. She didn't tell him to turn around, though. "Jude is coming to Amity Park and I am going out with him."

"Who's Jude?"

Sam completely ignored him and walked out of the apartment. She had decided that about an hour later, when both he and Tucker were in class, she'd get her things and get herself a hotel. That was the most unfortunate return and worst summer vacation ever. She wasn't going to wait it to be over, she was going to get the job and go away for good.

In the street Sam picked up her cell phone and dialed Jude's number. He picked it up quickly, as if he knew that was an emergency.

"Jude, hi."

"Sam? What happened?"

"I need you here." She couldn't hold her sobs anymore. It was impossible to hold her emotions when talking to Jude. "I'm sorry to bother you. How's your boyfriend?"

"Do not change the subject, Sam." Jude said. "It is Danny, isn't it? He's a jerk, isn't he?" Sam didn't answer and so he continued. "I'm going to get into my car right now and meet you there, okay? Just calm down and don't do anything stupid."

"Would you bring me a treat?" She half smiled at Jude's concern.

"Is that how you intend to get better?" Jude sounded even more concerned now. "Sam you promised me you wouldn't do it again. We had a deal it is just for rave parties."

"Please, Judie." She whined like a puppy.

"Fine, fine. I'll be there in… fifteen hours." Jude said.

"Okay." Sam replied quietly.

"I mean it Sam, don't do anything." Jude warned before hanging up.

Sam looked around at the street she knew so well. Nothing had changed really.

Her sanity had just been taken away.

University: Second Year

She was feeling dizzy. She shouldn't have drunk so much at the party. She wasn't going out with her classmates in the first place; they had somehow convinced her when they mentioned gothic poetry and weed. Now, don't get her wrong, she wasn't a junkie, addicted or anything of the kind. She'd just try a drug here and there once in a while out of curiosity, after all how could she see if the 'No Drugs' campaigns were telling the truth if she didn't analyze both sides?

Now she knew why celebrities would be caught doing drugs every now and then. How could people condemn them? They were locked in their rooms killings themselves and themselves only, not dragging the society down with them. Sam's modern ideas of drugs had gained her two meetings with the teachers and believe it or not, she convinced them that as long as the junkie didn't harm anybody it could be perfectly legal.

"I mean it!" She said, while sitting in front of her drugged classmates while she was very high herself. Isn't it amazing how clear your mind becomes about society and politics as soon as you take a drag? Jude wasn't anywhere to be found, by the way. "I say, why the government tries to rule our lives? They say we live in a democracy, but are we even allowed to be free? To have free will? I mean, suicide is illegal! If I get paraplegic and want to end my miserable life I'm not allowed to do so. I do not control my own life! I wonder if they even know about suffering, those who condemn suicide, I mean."

"You should smoke more often, Sam." Richard, one of her classmates said, putting his hand around her shoulders. "You have great ideals and you should talk about them more often. Have you ever thought about forming an anarchy group?"

"And go to jail accused of terrorism? No, thank you very much. Once people learn to listen first and kill later, when all forms of prejudice are over, the greatest minds will finally be free to figure what is the better for mankind."

"You speak beautifully, Sam!" Not only Richard, but several students clapped their hands at her speech, making her blush furiously, noticing that she had spoken louder than she usually did and that made her really nervous. Richard leaned forward to kiss her, but even in her high state she was able to get rid of him.

She woke up the next day in her fading make up, a party dress partially ripped off and with a horrible headache. She had no idea how she had gotten home or how that bottle of water and the bottle of aspirins ended on her night table. The only possible explanation was that Jude, her guardian angel, had somehow helped her home.

She didn't think twice. She took three aspirins at once and grabbed the other bottle to take a huge gulp of water… only to find that it was vodka. She didn't complain and she didn't have the brains to rationalize. She fell asleep immediately and woke up half an hour later with her head still burning.

Somehow her thoughts were overwhelmed by Danny and all the bad things he had done to her. She remembered when he called her saying he had a new girlfriend. She brought her knees up and cried because she was in pain, because she had lost Danny and because she was all alone. It was so humiliating; she was never going to forgive herself for not being able to erase those feelings, those thoughts.

Her hands found the bottles and without a second thought she swallowed all the aspirins and was half way through the vodka bottle when Jude arrived at the apartment, calling her name enthusiastically saying he had found a new bakery with lots of sweets. He found Sam sitting on her bed, he saw her holding the drink and saw the empty aspirin bottle. It didn't take long to put two and two together.

"What the hell are you doing?" He yelled, paling. "Stand up, right now." He let all the breads and sweets fall on the ground, he jumped on the bed and tried to make her stand up, but her knees buckled and she passed out.

Jude called an ambulance. Sam was checked out of the hospital the next day, but the doctor was insistent that she had to start a treatment with a psychiatrist. Jude convinced her that it was for the best and the diagnostic was very disturbing: she was suffering from chronic depression.

And that was it. She started taking a pill everyday and she'd have to take that pill for the rest of her life. She was feeling the lowest worm in the world. She was so smart in her grades, in her philosophy, but at the same time, she was so stupid when it came to Danny.

Seventh Day Back in Amity Park

Sam had forgotten to take her pill and had to go back to Danny and Tucker's apartment to get it. She opened the door and walked inside just to bump into the blond that had spent the night there. She looked like she had just woken up and she was wearing Danny's shirt.

"Can I help you?" She asked.

"Never mind me, I'm just getting my stuff and going." Sam answered, entering the guestroom and looking for her pill, frantically. She opened her purse with shaking hands. All the contents flew around the room and the bottle of medicine rolled all the way out of the door. She stood up quickly and tried to get it, but the blonde caught it first.

"Pills for depression, uh?" She said, reading the prescription. "You look like a troubled girl."

"It's not your business, with all due respect." Sam snatched the bottle out of her hands and walked all the way to the kitchen for a cup of water.

"You are Danny's ex, aren't you?" The blonde had the nerve to follow Sam and watch her carefully while leaning on the threshold. When Sam didn't answer, she continued. "Well, if you came back to get him, you better just go away because he's mine now."

"Suit yourself." Sam said, brushing past the girl and going to the room again, getting all her clothes from the wardrobe and putting them inside her bags, not caring about the wrinkles. "We're not even friends anymore so don't worry about me being in your way."

"I didn't want to be rude; I just want to keep what is rightfully mine." The blonde smiled like an evil snake. "And just to show you I don't mean any harm," She started, advancing towards Sam with a card she had taken from one of the pockets. "This is the party we're having tonight. You're invited."

"Thanks a lot." Sam answered sarcastically and, without even getting the card, she stormed out of the apartment carrying her things back to her mom's place. She had ten hours to make her mother tell her everything about the divorce and meet Jude to calm herself down. She stopped on the street and looked at the window on the fifth floor where Danny's flat was. She wasn't going to see them again. "Oh, damn, I forgot my medicine." She considered walking back there to get it, but she didn't want to face the blonde again. "I can buy another one."

Danny and Tucker opened their apartment door and walked inside carrying all the books and everything they had in their lockers. Danny put everything on the sofa and went to the kitchen to get a drink when he spotted the girl he had taken home the night before sitting there, wearing his shirt and drinking a cup of tea. She obviously hadn't gone to class.

"Michelle, I thought you were long gone." He smiled, never forgetting to be a gentleman to every girl.

"I was going home, but I had an unfortunate meeting with your ex." She said, raising her eyebrows angrily.

"Sam? What did she do?" Danny asked, suspiciously. He knew Sam could do a lot of vile things to the girls she didn't like, but she never would do anything unless she was provoked.

"Well, nothing really, she was just very disturbed when I saw these pills." Michelle threw him the bottle and sighed. "She said she's not coming back and frankly, I'm glad because she freaked me out." Danny looked at the bottle in his hands. It was written that it was medicine for chronic depression. His heart missed a beat. "How could you even date her? She's so pale and plain."

"Michelle, I'd appreciate if you get going." Danny said. "I just got a problem I have to deal with." His breathe wasn't stable anymore, he felt dizzy.

"Are you feeling okay, honey?" She asked, learning over him, but Danny brushed her hands away. "Ok, fine, I'll go, but we'll see each other at the party tonight, right?"

"Sure." Danny said.

"Red dress?" She asked sweetly.

"Oh yeah, this pleases me." He kissed her softly and she went to his room to get changed.

"Tucker?" Danny found Tucker inside his room, trying to put all his technology inside his wardrobe.

"Dude, I guess I'll have to buy a bigger wardrobe. Maybe a closet. No, scratch that, I'll get the guestroom and transform it into my private tech room."

"Listen, did you know that Sam was taking pills for depression?" Danny asked, sitting on the bed, reading carefully the label.

"Really?" Tucker was surprised. His PDA collection fell on the ground. "Oh, darn it!" He bent down to pick them up. "Maybe Sam was telling the truth in the park then."

"I don't like the look of it." Danny said. "She was healthy while she was here, why would she get sick during university?"

"Maybe you should ask her that." Tucker said. "And you better find her now because she won't be coming back, the guest room is clean. She didn't even forget her toothbrush this time"

Six Months after Kyle

"You see, I got a postcard from Kyle." Sam said, entering her bedroom where a happy and very much naked halfa was laying down, fast asleep. "Hey, wake up; we're going to miss school."

"Don't we still have an hour to go?" He groaned, covering himself with the blanket, sheltering himself from the awake world.

"We do, I don't mind but it's you who ran away from home to come here last night." She said, sitting down next to him and shaking the mattress as much as she could. "Your parents will put two and two together you know…" She didn't want to continue, but she also remembered that every eye on school were on them, because of the old rumors the teachers were suspicious what they had been doing if they arrived late and the last thing she wanted was to have the principal to call their parents.

"Oh, and yours are fine with it." He said, grinning and pulling his head from under the covers.

"Honey, mine are in England, remember?" She asked, sweetly, bending over him to kiss him on the lips.

"Oh right… so, you were saying something about a postcard." He said, picking her up and laying her on top of him as he kissed her lazily across the face.

"Yea, it's from Kyle. He's in Italy training to become an opera singer, can you believe it?" She laughed when Danny buried his head on her damp hair and used his skillful hands to roll them over so he would be on top. Really, he didn't want to talk about Kyle. "Isn't it today we have a double date with Tucker and Valerie?"

"I believe so." Danny answered, still too busy kissing and caressing her to answer her properly. "I could wake up like this every morning for the rest of my life."

"I hope this is not a marriage proposal." Sam laughed, answering him. "I usually turn them down." She felt him kiss her hair and caress her back. His fingers lifted her nightshirt, leaving her completely bare to him.

"It's not a proposal if you don't want it to be." Danny answered, kissing her sweetly on the lips, thinking that it was enough for conversation. They both melted into the kiss and she reached up with trembling fingers to caress his face. She still couldn't control herself whenever he kissed her. She'd shake helplessly.

He knew exactly how she liked to be kissed, experience coming from lots and lots of practice. He knew she liked it when he touched her softly with his tongue before parting her lips. She liked it slow and sensual.

They matched perfectly and they fit like they had been made for each other. She moaned desperately as he continued kissing her lips each time more passionate. Her lips were his. He owned them.

"Oh my… I love you." He said, burying his head on her neck.

"And I am extremely attracted to you." She replied, which was her usual answer when he said those three words. "And it will last for a long, long time."

"… I hope so." He said, returning to the point where they had stopped and Sam was very glad he did. He let his hands move downwards and she winced slightly. Danny opened his eyes, afraid that he had hurt her and found her eyes closed, her face contorted in pain. "Did I hurt you?"

"I am still sore…" She gave him a small hurt smile. "I'm sorry… it may take a few days."

"Did I hurt you that badly last night?" He asked quietly, caressing her face with his fingers. He had seen her tears the night before and she begged him to stop. He really didn't want to stop, but her tears convinced him immediately. He had hoped that she'd be fine in the morning, but it seemed that he had been wrong. He should've been more careful. He was sure that if he had been gentler she wouldn't be in so much pain.

"No." She blushed, "That's normal." She turned around so he could lie on her side. She felt sorry for him, she really wanted to give him what he wanted, but it was impossible at that moment. She saw that he had his eyes closed, trying to control himself. She sweetly brushed his sweaty bangs away from his eyes. "I'm really sorry."

"Don't worry about it." He said, sitting up after giving her a quick kiss. "You said we have an hour before school right?"

"Yeah… why?"

"Can I use your shower?" He asked awkwardly.

"Sure." She answered quickly, blushing.

Danny stood up and left the room, leaving Sam sitting there wondering if it was supposed to be that hard to give herself to her boyfriend. She knew it was supposed to hurt the first time, but she thought she could bear the pain; after all she was tough wasn't she? But unfortunately she didn't know it would be over before it even started.

She felt terrible for disappointing Danny and the pain hadn't gotten any better. He was a sweet angel, but he still was a boy and Sam feared that his patience was wearing thin. They had started a very heated relationship, but she hadn't allowed him to take a step further until they had completed six months together and he hadn't insisted on the matter.

If only it didn't hurt so much…

Seventh Day Back in Amity Park

Jude had arrived in Amity Park exactly fifteen hours after Sam called him; he had driven straight and at full speed. He was a very dedicated friend and was very worried about her. He met her in the main street and she took him straight to a hotel where she was staying.

She was very upset because her mother wouldn't talk about the divorce; actually, when Sam tried to force her to speak she kicked her out of the house. Sam didn't recognize anything in her hometown anymore, not even her parents. Her mother was still in denial and it made Sam furious. It wasn't her place to try to get her parents back together, if they couldn't stand each other it was better it they never saw each other again, but still she wished her mother would tell her about it. And her father hadn't called her, yet?

"I remember when my dad took me to the circus." Sam said, lying in the bed of the hotel room while Jude stared at her on her side. "I saw the clowns, the dancers, everything, but there was something missing." Sam was looking at the ceiling; she lightened a cigarette and was off to somewhere dark that was deep down her mind. "When I fell in love with Danny it was wonderful. But after the breakup I thought it wasn't everything I had thought a relationship could be."

Jude was quiet, listening to her. He had already noticed she had forgotten to take her depression pill.

"Is that all that is?'" Sam let her tears fall freely. "If that's the way I fell I about it, why don't I just end it all?"

"Sam, you're overreacting." Jude tried to explain, squeezing her hand. He took a mental note to never –ever- let her smoke weed when she was depressed, again.

"I'm not ready for that final disappointment, you know… because I know that when I breathe my last breath I'll think 'Is that all that is to life?'." She sat up on the bed, looking straight at Jude. "I'm horrible, aren't I?" She cried. "Who will ever love me? I'm a monster… depressive, junkie, goo monster that must be kept away from healthy people."

"I never thought I'd say this, but… you need to party." Jude said, standing up. "You need to party a lot, party hardcore."

"Danny's bedmate invited me to their party tonight." She grinned, through tears. "I hate to tell you this, but I really want to go there, I want to drink and I want to take an ecstasy tablet. Do you have it?"

"Yeah, Sam, I brought two." Jude sighed, not knowing what to do anymore. "But you'll just take half, okay?" he said. "I'm here to take care of you and the last time I let you take a whole one you were high for fifteen hours you remember very well how was your depression after that."

"Don't worry about it. You're the best." She kissed him lightly on the lips and stood up. "I'm going to take a shower."

"You know what?" Jude said, following her, "I think you should take a whole one, you need irrational strength right now." Sam was taking her clothes off; she never really cared about getting undressed in front of him. There was something about Jude that made him completely harmless. It was almost like he was her twin; she didn't mind showing herself to him because he wouldn't be impressed or disappointed. It was just… normal.

"And you claim to be my protector." She laughed bitterly, sitting down in the hot bath.

"I mean it. Do you remember what I told you back in our apartment? You must be strong; you must show him that you're not at his mercy. You are a strong woman, why do you become a wreck when it comes to him?"

"I don't know." She said quietly. Her tears had dried and she wouldn't cry for him anymore. Danny showed her he wasn't worth her tears. "Maybe I should just come clean with my feelings with him. When we broke up it was so sudden, it was almost like it didn't happen. I really felt like I was just waiting for classes to be over so we could be together again."

"It explains why you never kissed anybody in these fours years." Jude said and Sam didn't respond. She was ashamed of her actions. Jude could almost hear her thoughts. She was calling herself stupid and weak for not being able to move on. "So, look at me." He demanded and she lifted her eyes to meet his, timidly. "You're going to move on, but you won't go away like a victim."

"Is that your plan?"

"Yes. You'll show him you're too good for him and you'll call that newspaper in L.A. and accept the job. You don't need this trash anymore, Sammie; it's time to start a new life."

"I kind of like your plan." Sam smiled, "There's only one thing."

"What?"

"The job in L.A. is on the TV, not the newspaper." She smiled triumphantly.

**I'm so sorry for taking so long to update! I was very sick and even spent a night in the hospital (the last time I had to stay in a hospital was because I had a bad case of pneumonia when I was 5 years old... so... I haven't been in a hospital for like 16 years!). That sickness completely messed my schedule, my movie is almost 3 weeks in delay, I had a nervous breakdown in my birthday (I had to work and my relatives decided to visit me without warning... I rushed home from university in my car, driving at 75MPH and just couldn't make it on time, my grandma was really angry because I was too worried about work to spend time with her) and just when I thought everything would get better my college tests started and they will go on until next Wednesday. **

**Well, thanks for reviewing and review again, I need to get some nice words to cheer me up. **

**Thanks Rae!**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four**_

Seventh Day Back in Amity Park

Amity Park College's goodbye Party was what people would call indecent. Danny didn't mind at all. If it was a normal party he and Tucker would be off in the first fifteen minutes inside the club making out with some girl. But of course, tonight wasn't exactly normal.

That day had completed a week since Sam was back into his life. She returned and showed him how much she had changed, he learned that she had problems; that her life wasn't perfect without him, and then she just disappeared again. His mind was too busy thinking about Sam to even notice the girls around the club.

And then it happened. Sam entered the club shining gloriously in a tight red dress. Danny gasped loudly, which made Tucker look exactly in the same direction only to gasp, too. It became a chain reaction until all boys in the club were staring at the beauty that had just arrived and like every glorious star, Sam didn't pay attention to a single one of them except the tall and handsome redhead that had his arms linked with hers. She had never looked more stunning in her life.

She was laughing and enjoying herself since she took the first step into the club. Danny felt two hands embrace his waist and barely took his eyes off Sam to see that Michelle had decided to claim him. But it looked like Michelle hadn't noticed that Sam was there, when she saw that Danny was completely enchanted by another girl, she looked around to find her rival, only to finally see Sam there.

Michelle marched towards Sam thinking of a million strikes she could say at the girl, but she never saw what was coming. Before leaving the hotel, Sam took an ecstasy tablet and at the moment she entered the club the drug had taken her as high as possible. So the moment Sam saw Michelle she smiled like she had seen her best friend and hugged the girl in front of everyone.

"Hello, girl!" Sam said, holding the girl very tightly. Jude was holding back a laugh. "Thank you so much for inviting me here. This party is amazing!"

Danny couldn't be more confused. Michelle had said Sam had freaked her out and then they hug each other when all eyes are on them. But of course, Danny didn't miss the slightly hint of strategy that Sam might be using. She was trying to seduce him, he concluded, and that conclusion made him remember everything he loved about her in the first place. He smiled when he saw her walking towards him and Tucker (with that man on her heels, whoever he was).

"Hello, Danny, hi Tucker." She gave them both a body-crushing hug.

"You look stunning." Danny said giving her a sexy grin he had learned to be irresistible very recently.

"Oh, thank you, you are a darling, aren't you?" She said, kissing his cheek. It was when Danny noticed how unlike herself she was acting. It didn't look unnatural, or fake like she forcing herself to be polite, it was genuine, but it just wasn't her. She turned to the bartender and called him sweetly. "Could you please serve me a martini?"

"For you, sugar, it's on the house." The bartender said placing the drink in front of her while she looked adoringly at him.

"Don't worry about it, Ray," Danny said to the bartender, stepping into the flirting game that was going on. He placed fifty bucks on the table. "I'll pay for all her martinis tonight." Man… she was cute when she was drinking.

"That's so kind of you, Danny." Sam said, placing a kiss on his cheek. "Oh, how could I have been so rude?" She said, stepping back and holding Jude by his arm, introducing both boys. "Jude, this is Danny. Danny, this is Jude, my boyfriend."

Danny's jaw dropped. Since when she had a boyfriend? That Jude guy was taller than he was, he had larger shoulders and he had perfect skin, perfect teeth, and perfect clothes. Danny and Jude shook hands and Danny felt like turning Jude intangible and dragging him into the ground and leaving him there.

"Let's go dancing, Jude." Sam said, claiming his hands to her again. Danny didn't miss her naughty look and also didn't miss the mocking face Jude had just shot him. It was almost like Jude was daring him to go try to get Sam away from him.

Sam wasn't rationalizing and Jude wasn't on his best shape, either. Both were very high and had no idea what they were doing. They were dancing frenetically and the electronic music just inspired them dance even hander.

First Sam got closer to Jude than she ever had before, holding him like she used to hold Danny. Jude welcomed her embrace and stared into her eyes, seeing the beautiful person that she was, the only girl that ever made him re-think his choice. What could a friendly kiss do, anyway?

Danny watched her in the distance. Slowly, his always-clueless mind started working things out. She was looking sexy. She was dancing frenetically; she was so happy that she seemed to have turned into sugar itself.

His eyes widened in realization: Sam was drugged.

To his surprise, not only they started kissing, but that was some serious make out. They held each other and kissed and groped all the way to the wall where he pressed her against, tightening his grip around her. Sam's hands danced widely around his chest and back. Danny finally snapped when he saw Jude's hands crawling to her panties through her dress.

"Stop staring, dude, she's taken." Tucker laughed by his side. Tucker's sense of humor would fall to catastrophic each time he got drunk. Danny decided to ignore the comment.

"Tucker, find a girl and go home with her, do not go back to the apartment tonight, okay?" Danny said making sure Tucker got the message.

"You're not planning on getting Sam back there, are you?"

Danny didn't answer. He turned himself invisible walked slowly towards Sam and just touched her shoulder, which was enough to make her go invisible, too. He tightened his grip on her waist and flew to his apartment, not minding the fact that Jude was left behind wondering what had happened and certainly not minding Sam's protests.

What had happened to her in the university? Who was that girl that was almost giving herself away in a club? The Sam he knew, his girlfriend, would blush if he tried to steal a kiss in public. He could smell Jude's perfume on her skin, he saw her swollen lips and her flushed face. She was in a hazy bliss.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Sam?" He asked her, but her eyes did not focus on him immediately. She was busy looking at the stars above her, while he flew all the way back to his apartment. She remembered he used to take her home like that; she always could stare up to the sky while he held her protectively in his arms.

Her lack of response only made Danny get even angrier, actually he was at the boiling point. He was more than furious. He flew straight into the living room and let go of her quickly, as if she burned him. She wasn't dizzy at all; she could stand on her two feet perfectly as if she wasn't even slightly high.

"Samantha, talk to me!" He used her name… so he was past furious and Sam surely was loving each minute of it. It meant he still cared for her. Could he still be attracted to her? She had to find out.

Before Danny could realize what was going on, she kissed him. No. She attacked his lips like an animal. She was as passionate as she was in their first weeks of relationship. She kissed as she remembered he liked to be kissed, open mouthed and hot, her tongue swept into his mouth and she was very satisfied to notice he still tasted the same. After all the other girls that had claimed his mouth, he still had the same mint taste that she loved too much.

She stepped back, controlling herself. She smiled satisfied when she noticed what she had done. Her mind was a little clearer now. She opened her eyes in time to see Danny do the same. He stared at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. He had just realized something that was going to change a lot his current life. She was the only one that could ever turn him on like that. He had that same goofy face on that he had years ago when they kissed.

"I just wanted to know if I could still to this." She said, caressing his face with her soft hand. She wanted to know if she still could make him look like_ that_. Danny put his hand on top of hers and tried to bring her closer once again, but she pushed away from him. "But now that I know … I can tell you goodbye."

She walked past him and reached for the door. Danny took a while to realize what was going on. He ran and closed the door before she could get out.

"What do you mean?" He whispered, quietly.

"I accepted a job in L.A." She smiled sadly. "I'm moving the first thing in the morning."

"You can't go to L.A.!" Danny yelled, realizing that he'd go insane without her.

"I won't stay, Danny." Sam smiled. "It's time I move on. I mean, you've moved on, why couldn't I?" She asked herself. She once more leaned forward and kissed him sweetly on the lips. "I can't stay and stuck your life. Danny, I just want you to know what I wish the best for you. I really want you to become an astronaut. I want you to be so much happy."

"But Sam… I want you here with me." He whispered, not needing to raise his voice since she was so close.

"Of course you don't." She laughed. "You got… all Amity Park's girls. Why would you miss same old me?" She continued laughing, noticing that her eyes filled with tears.

Danny didn't answer her. She was right. He could have any girl why he wanted her to stay? He was going to keep her away from her future just because he wanted…her? Was he really that selfish?

"I have to go now." She announced. "I'll miss you… and then I'll get over you."

She brushed his hand away from the door and opened it. She felt his hands encircling her around her waist, as if afraid to let her take one more step away from him.

"Can you stay tonight?" He kissed her neck, which was a very low blow since she was still high. She couldn't say no to that kiss and she had no idea she was going to regret it dreadfully in the morning. For the moment, what he was asking was fair, he had given her a night before he walked away and he was asking her to do the same.

She turned around and Danny once more closed the door, quickly working on the buttons of her dress. She brushed his hands away once more, looking at him almost defiantly.

"I said I'll go."

Then she really left, not looking back and as if it was her goal all night. The world collapsed around him. He realized now something that unconsciously he'd known for years.

Sam was the only one he had ever loved. No girl he had kissed had tasted as heavenly as her, no girl could laugh like she did or blush as cutely as she did. Why had he broken up with her in the first place? Why was he feeling now something that was missing back there? And why did he realize it now that she was about to leave him for good for a bright future?

Danny decided that it was for the best if he just sat down. He had to rethink his relationship with her. He laughed when he remembered how they first became friends.

_Second grade was a very fun time for Danny and his best friend Tucker. Believe it or not, when you're that young, school is like a playground and play time is the best period they could ask for._

_There was a girl that had been transferred in their class about a week ago. She wasn't a very cheerful girl; she never played with them and barely spoke in class, not even when the teacher asked her a question._

_Danny found himself staring at the raven haired girl, who looked miserable in her pink dress while the teacher explained how the little birds would come out of their eggs._

"… _and so the bird beaks the egg from inside until he breaks free. Now, who wants to go outside and find a bird nest?" The teacher said, looking at her watch and realizing it was time to let the children go out and play._

_The children echoed a 'me!' very cheerfully and ran outside to pest the poor birds._

_Danny didn't move; he watched the girl stand up and walk outside calmly, after all the children had vanished._

"_Do you want to help me find a bird nest?" Danny asked her, taking her by surprise._

"_There isn't a bird nest here." She said. "The trees aren't tall enough."_

"_Really?" Danny asked, surprised. "You know a lot about birds!"_

"_I like to read about them… and sometimes I go to the park bird watching." She said. "I'm Sam, by the way. I just moved here."_

"_I'm Danny." He said. "Do you have many friends?"_

"_No, my mom won't let me go out and play with kids; she doesn't want me to ruin my clothes." She made a disgusted face. "I would like to ruin this pink dress, though."_

"_I can help you with that." Danny laughed._

"_Danny!" Tucker ran to him as soon as he spotted Danny outside talking to the weird new girl. "Leave her alone and let's play. Listen, I heard Paulina saying that she doesn't eat chicken egg because she doesn't want to eat the little chicks."_

"_She did? But I eat chicken egg and I never saw a little chick inside it." Danny replied._

"_Why? There's no actual chick inside an egg?"_

"_Of course there is." Sam said, still standing beside them. "You just have to eat it before it becomes a chicken." She explained._

"_But if we do, then do we eat alive chicken?" Tucker asked. "And I must have dozen chickens inside my stomach!"_

"_How do they come out?" Danny asked, poking Tucker on the stomach. "Do they become babies?"_

"_Of course not, only girls can have babies, right?" Tucker asked, scared that maybe he was going to become a mother someday._

"_I don't know. Is that how babies are born?" Danny asked. "I mean, do we eat eggs and then the baby grows in your stomach?"_

"_My mom says it happens when you eat a big watermelon." Paulina got into the conversation as well and soon other kids joined the discussion._

"_Don't be stupid." Sam said, making all the kids shut up in fear and listen to her. "Babies are born when mommy tries to kill daddy."_

"_What?" Danny felt his eyes filling up with tears. "My mom tried to kill daddy?"_

"_Mine, too?" Paulina asked._

"_How do you know it?" Dash asked._

"_Because I saw it. Duh." Sam replied, smartly._

"_But how?" Tucker insisted. "Is it with a knife?"_

"_No, she strangles him." Sam explained, wisely. "I can show you." She said. "Danny, lay on the ground." She ordered._

"_Are you going to strangle me?" Danny asked, miserably, gulping in fear._

"_It's just pretend; I won't strangle you for real, I don't want to have your baby."_

"_Okay, then…" Danny lay on the grass and all the students surrounded him, watching in amazement the demonstration that was about to happen._

"_The mommy sits on daddy, like this." Sam sat on Danny's stomach. "And she strangles him, like this." And she out her little hands around Danny' neck shaking his head back and forth. "Now you cry for help, Danny."_

"_Ahhh! She's killing me!" Danny pretended to be hurt. It actually was a little fun, but only when it wasn't happening for real. He didn't want to be strangled._

"_Samantha! What are you doing to Danny?" The teacher cried out, when she saw that her little devils were 'fighting'._

"_Nothing. Sorry." Sam stood up, helping Danny up, too. She bent her head and waited to be grounded, but instead of the angry teacher's voice, she head Danny's instead._

"_She was just teaching us how babies are born." Danny explained. "Please, don't be mad at her."_

_The shocked teacher couldn't say much more. The answer Danny had just given her was the last one she expected. The situation was very delicate. She couldn't yell at the children or explain to them how it really happened. There was only one thing she could do…_

"_Samantha, Daniel, I'm not going to ground you, but you'll have go talk to the principal right away and explain everything to her, okay?" The teacher said._

_Danny and Sam nodded, feeling very depressed about the whole situation. They had never caused any trouble before. Danny softly tucked Sam's hand to make her lift her eyes and look at him. When her eyes met his, he gave her a naughty grin. Sam smiled back, holding his hand firmly on hers._

"_But, wait!" Tucker said, making everybody look at him. "Does it mean that I'm not going to have a baby?"_

"_Tucker, you better go to the principal's office, too."_

It seemed that they had always been in some kind of relationship since they've met. Their first memory together was already talking about how babies are born. Maybe they always had some kind of sexual tension between them even if he refused to see it until they started dating.

In the beginning it was just about kisses, he wondered how she felt and tasted like, but she had always been shy about it so he never really got too passionate with her, except that time in her house when she was looking for Kyle. So… was it possible that the reason why he had broken up with her was the fact that he had never seen her wild side? Was he too used to the sarcastic and indifferent Goth girl?

He did remember waking up the morning when he had been with her for the last time. That day, while she was sleeping, messy hair, without make up and even with puffy lips he had seen in her the most beautiful girl in the world. Nobody could compare to her, ever. He had really thought about not breaking up that moment, but then he remembered that she was in Yale and he was all the way back in Amity Park. A distant relationship couldn't last.

And Sam… well… she never believed in love anyway, she was attracted to him after Kyle episode and it had lasted for two years. She didn't believe in happily ever after even though she was happy with him. Danny hated to admit it, but her love philosophy was right. Love didn't exist. It was just temporary attraction.

And his temporary attraction for her was returning… really fast. He couldn't let her go away.

Sam was already in the street, walking slowly towards the hotel room she had rented and still had no idea how she was going to get there. She didn't even remember the address. She took her time to admire how well she could stand on her high heels even when she was high. How many people could do that anyway?

She thought she was going to feel relief when she walked away from Danny. She thought that if she dumped him instead of being dumped it would make her feel better… but why was her heart still breaking?

'Be proud, girl… you finally said your goodbyes, you gotta get out of this little town and become a big city woman. Start a new life… without Danny. You can control it, after all it's just temporary attraction right? You just need to find someone even more gorgeous and everything will be fine.'

"Sam!"

Sam rolled her eyes and turned around to face a desperate halfa. She could feel her ego being massaged that exactly moment. He was scared of losing her… what a dear.

"Please… don't go." He said, breathing heavily, like he had been running for hours. "Give me a chance."

"I told you I have a job out of here!" Sam said, tapping her foot and playing the impatient girl.

"But you said you only start in September!" Danny replied, not remembering the fact that he had overhead her telling it to her mother on the first day back.

"Yeah, but I wanted to go there and… hey, I never told you that." Sam stopped for a moment… and frowned angrily two seconds later figuring out what had happened. "You were spying on me!"

"No, it was an accident. I wasn't going to overhear. I swear." Danny said quickly. "But anyway, if you don't want to give me a second chance… I'm not going to insist. I don't want to trap you in a relationship." He said, gently, the desperate tone was slowly dying down. "I'm not going to ask you to be mine… you can see other people like that Jude guy, but… would you stay for a while?"

"Why do you want me to stay, Danny?" She sighed, already knowing that she was going to give in.

"I want to know you again." He smiled, softly touching her cheek. "And I am incredibly jealous of your boyfriend."

"Jude is not my boyfriend." She sighed. "He's my best friend… and he's gay."

"Does it mean you're free?" He grinned and Sam smiled, too.

"But it doesn't change the fact that our relationship is over and I am not giving you another chance." She said seriously, trying to ignore the fact that Danny was too close and leaning towards her like he was going to kiss her.

His eyes were seeking hers like they used to. She felt her heart skip a beat and closed her eyes in complete surrender. She shuddered, breathing deeply and she found herself swimming in illogical feelings and sensations with a furor that only the drug she had taken could give her and the addiction of Danny only made it even more blissful.

He kissed her fully, happy to notice that she was responding equally hungrily, fighting for dominance. She had never done it before and Danny found it incredibly sensual. All times he kissed her she would just accept his kiss and let him lead the pace.

They somehow made it to Danny's flat and into his room. He had his hands around her waist and took his time to push her down against the mattress. Her hands were immediately around his chest and neck, holding him close with a strength he didn't know she had.

The whole night was demanding and ardent, not innocent, calm and romantic like it used to be. There was a new side of themselves they had never revealed to each other and now was completely exposed. At the same time the touch was familiar the excitement was completely new.

They collapsed by the time the sun was rising in the horizon and just opened their eyes again in the middle of the afternoon. Danny woke up first. His head wasn't hurting as badly as he thought it would. He turned his head to stare at the raven haired girl sleeping on his side, she was using his shoulder as a pillow and her legs were tangled on his.

He smiled and put a hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her awake. He feared she was going to yell at him because he knew he had taken advantage of her while she wasn't thinking clearly. Would she have stayed in other circumstances?

Sam opened her eyes groggily and found herself in Danny's familiar arms. She snuggled close happily. For a second she was back four years ago when they still were a couple and they would wake up in each others arms completely wanting to ditch school to stay like that, lazy and satisfied.

But she remembered that she wasn't seventeen anymore, that Danny hadn't sneaked up to her room while her parents were asleep to spend the night with her. She was twenty two, she wasn't a teen anymore and Danny certainly wasn't that innocent boy that would trade the world for her. She wanted to die when she remembered they had independent lives that didn't revolve around each other anymore.

Why the hell did she sleep with him? Now it was going to be even worse to let go and she had some experience in the subject. She lifted her eyes and saw him staring at her apprehensively, as if he was waiting to be yelled at.

"Hi…" She said quietly.

"Hi." He replied.

"Hm…" She sat up, covering herself with the sheets. She had never felt so awkward in front of him before. "I just wanted you to know that… as much as I enjoyed last night, my plans are the same. I think we both just… needed that."

"Sam, you know I care a lot about you." Danny sat up, placing his hands on her shoulder to brush her hair away so he could have at least see her face. "And we don't have to do anything you don't want to."

"How much do you care about me, Danny?" She turned around slightly, just enough to see his serious face. "Is that same love you claimed to have when we were together?"

"No." Danny asked sincerely. "I don't think I'm in love with you."

"Good." She said. "Because I don't feel anything more than friendship towards you."

"But what will happen now?" He asked, very confused with the whole situation. He knew he didn't love her like he had, but still he was extremely attracted to her and all girls he had in college couldn't compare to how good it felt with Sam.

"I don't know. I'll go to L.A, I guess." She whispered. "I'll seek my career… you'll do the same. Life will go easy on us and eventually we'll forget it all. You can keep our pictures if you want."

"Sam, don't talk like that." Danny jumped in front of her, grabbing her arms as if she would dissolve into nothingness if he didn't touch her.

"Danny…" She whispered, framing his face with her small and delicate hands. "I'm sorry, but this is the epilogue of our relationship." She sniffed quietly and didn't try to fight the tears that pooled in her eyes. "We can't live this teen crush forever. It was our first love and it was the best thing we could ask for, but… it's bound to end. How can we fight for a relationship, jeopardize our futures, when we don't even love each other anymore?"

"I'm just scared." He said, lifting his hands to meet hers. "I'm scared I'll never find anyone like you. I'm scared that you're the one and that I'm about to let you go."

When she heard his words, instead of softening up, Sam got angry, as if she had been insulted. She stood up, taking her hands away from his and quickly searched for her discarded clothes. She put on her panties and bra before deciding to give Danny an answer.

"How can you say that I am the one…" She chocked out, falling down on her knees weakly. "… when you go out with girls and sleep with them every single week?"

"They're nothing like you." Danny said, brushing his hair nervously. He wished he could explain to her what he was feeling, exactly how different and special it was with her, but he knew his actions had been very controversial.

"Yeah…" She smiled sadly, wearing on her usual sarcastic posture. "Keep telling yourself that if that's what makes you happy."

"Are you going now?" He asked, desperately standing up and trying to block her way out. "Aren't you going to stay until the end of the summer?"

"What for?" She cried out. "To make it even harder to leave?"

"No… it's just that I wanted to spend as much time with you as possible because then we'll never see each other again." He felt his hands shake and his knees were week, just like when he first had agreed to pretend to be her boyfriend. He was shaking like when he was about to kiss her for the very first time. "I can't take it, yet."

"You lived without me for four years." She pointed out. "You're exaggerating. You didn't just get over me, you got much more than I could ever give you." She laughed bitterly. "I'm not blonde, I don't have big boobs and I certainly don't call you 'wild beast' while we're together. Stick with your harem because it's a very good therapy." She pointed out. "Stay with them and keep yourself entertained and you may never need a psychiatrist like me! I should've done exactly the same."

"Tell me…" He felt himself growing angrier as she spoke like that. "I want to hear you say that you can go on living your life without me!"

"I can and I will!" She found her dress under the bed and started putting it on when he completely lost his mind.

"No you can't!" He grabbed her and threw her on the bed, jumping on top of her and kissing her desperately as if it was really the last time he was going to taste her. "You won't be able to do it." He said, yanking the dress off her again. "Because every time another man kisses you you'll compare his kisses to mine." He kissed her hardly as if to prove his point. "Every time he touches you you'll remember how I used to touch you." And he lowered his hand to touch her furiously exactly on the spot that would drive her crazy. "And every time he's on top of you you'll compare his weight to mine."

Sam couldn't respond. He wasn't playing fair and her coherent thoughts had completely left her with his first touch. And there they were at it again, loving each other 'the last time' for the fourth time that day.

Their relationship couldn't be more confusing and their pride certainly wasn't helping.

**A/N – I got this problem with this site, the PM Messages and to Reply the reviews so I decided to answer some of them here, I know lots of people reviewed (I jump around my room every time I read a new review) but I'm just going to answer who asked me one thing or another, since I can't answer in private. **

DragonRose78 – **I really liked the music, but I'm not sure if it fits in this fanfic... I already got three songs to go until the end and I think it's going to get redundant if I keep putting songs here. I liked the music so much that I may write a new fanfic just for this one, so thanks. **

Annabelle Carter – **I completely forgot to put the credits for the song here! Thanks for noticing. And to answer you question: Sam was 'saying' (not singing 'cuz she wasn't in condition to control her voice to sing) the song because it kind of illustrate how she felt at the moment. So, the credits for those two lines in the last chapter when Sam was smoking in her hotel room is Peggy Lee's, for the song 'Is that All There Is'.**

Nom de Plume the Beta – **It's been a while since I've tried to answer your PM, but like I said, my PM messaging isn't working. I'd really like to talk to you, if you're still interested.**

**And because of this problem with this site's messages in case you guys want to talk to me you've very welcome in my MSN/Hotmail account, we can chat there. Just tell me where you are from 'cuz usually I talk in Portuguese there, just warn me so I can talk in English with you. Contact me at: m i k i underline p e o r t h at h o t m a i l . c o m ... and don't forget to take the spaces off. **

**Thank you so much for reviewing! Thanks for being concerned about my health, it was just a weird cold (I'm in winter here, and Brazil's winter is really bad for health, too much pollution, almost no rain… well, you get the picture.) and also thanks for the best wishes for my tests, believe it or not… now I'm the first in all my college classes… jeez I feel nerdy. **

**Review again and you'll get a cookie!**


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter Five**_

Fourteenth Day Back In Amity Park

Sam was sitting in the café that Mrs. Stone worked. She had been there a whole week after her heated encounter with Danny. She kicked herself mentally each second she spent in Amity Park after saying her goodbyes. Jude had left on the third day leaving her two more ecstasy pills that laid untouched on her purse and a bottle of her medicine, remembering her that she shouldn't stop taking them. Jude was hurt, but when she asked what was wrong he didn't say.

She had seen Danny and Tucker many times after that day, but when they tried to go after her she'd run away and hide. She wanted to talk to Danny, but it was hard to even look at him. She'd have to be trapped again to face him.

Finally, as if her wishes were heard by fate, Danny walked inside the café, completely alone and looking exhausted. He spotted her immediately and took a deep breath before sitting in front of her. His arm was bleeding and his hair was a mess. He obviously had just returned from a ghost fight.

"Skulker?" Sam asked quietly, watching him carefully over her tea cup before taking a sip.

"No. Vlad." Danny answered tiredly. He obviously was more concerned about her than his wounds. "So, how are you?"

"I'm good." She replied, giving him a small smile. "I was reading a letter that was sent from L.A. They expect me there on August 30th." She wrapped the letter and put it on her purse. "They said I'll work as an editor in the art shows in the TV."

"That's a big thing for a first job." Danny smiled. "Congratulations."

"Thanks." They were silent again. "What about you? What are you going to do?"

"I'll start next week to work in Axion Labs." He said quietly. "I'll develop rockets projects until I can apply into NASA."

"I know you'll do it." She smiled, reaching over the table and grasping his hand friendly. "When you are an astronaut come to me and I'll interview you."

"It would be nice." He laughed softly but then he got quiet again and intertwined his fingers with hers. "I was wondering… did you think about the other night?"

"Yes…" She whispered, quickly looking around to see if Mrs. Stone was overhearing them. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Do you regret it?" He asked carefully.

"No." She answered, looking at him as if he had asked the silliest question in the world. "Why, do you?"

"No." He smiled relieved and held his breath to say what was bothering him for a while. "I wanted to come over tonight if that's okay with you."

Sam was completely speechless. For a moment she was even knocked out of air. She tried to move her lips, but they were trembling. Did she want this? Yes, she did, she wanted it very much.

"Sure… if you want to." Was her awkward answer. "But won't Michelle be upset?"

"I haven't seen her or any other girl since that night." He leaned close, for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but he leaned toward her ear and whispered hotly. "It's amazing with you. I can't take my mind off you."

"You're…" She trailed off when she felt a small kiss on her neck. She closed her eyes in anticipation and licked her lips involuntary. But when he sat back down, leaving her completely unsatisfied and yearning for more – so much more – she opened her eyes and returned to the reality. "You can come around 7pm if you want to have dinner with me. I am in Amity Hotel and I'll wait for you in the restaurant."

"That's settled them." He grinned, standing up. "And now if you excuse me, I'll have to clean these wounds. My mom will probably want to analyze the ectoplasm so I better hurry up."

"Sure." She laughed. Danny turned around and ran out of the café. She smiled as she watched him go. She felt a familiar feeling on the tip of her stomach that she used to feel when Danny and she would say goodbye in the evenings.

"Are you two back together?" Mrs. Stone asked, taking Sam's empty cup of tea. Sam smiled at the woman.

"No… for now we're just… confused."

Five Years Ago – One Year Anniversary

Danny had the hardest time ever trying to figure out something special to enjoy their first year anniversary. Not that Sam was expecting much more than a movie marathon on her private theater while cuddling in each other arms, but he truly wanted it to be so much more.

He finally decided to take her to the carnival. Sam was slightly shocked that he was taking her to a happy couple night in the carnival (that wasn't even a Goth one), but deep down she was screaming in joy. Danny was a very dedicated boyfriend and he usually knew what she wanted even if she didn't say it. She was a tough Goth girl, but still she liked sweets, romantic movies and the old cliché of the carnival where the boyfriend would win the girlfriend a cute teddy bear.

"Do you want to ride the Ferris Wheel?" Danny asked. Their hands were joined and he felt her giving him a little happy squeeze, so he didn't want for her to say it out loud, he just lead her to the wheel and paid the ride.

"I should be paying; you got me the gothic teddy bear." Sam said, looking inside her purse.

"No way, I'm paying." Danny had already his wallet open.

"You know… it is the twenty first century and I'd like to pay for something. I feel like I'm feeding your male chauvinism when I let you pay for everything." Sam protested, but didn't let go of his hand and sat down next to him in the wheel anyway.

"Fine, you buy the candies when we're out of here." Danny grinned, and then he pulled her closer, putting his arms around her shoulders. "But for now, let's enjoy the ride, okay?"

She nodded with a shy smile and leaned closer, capturing his lips with hers. Danny noticed the change in her kiss. He smiled when he noticed that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He hadn't tried making love with her since last time when she cried and said she was hurt. Now, the way she was kissing him, only made him believe that she was offering him another chance.

"Sam… do you want to?" He asked, panting against her lips.

"We could try." She smiled trying to maintain herself straight. When their eyes met their breathing became heavier. Danny was paralyzed in front of her, but she didn't want him to sit still like that. She reached her hands behind his neck and brought his face closer to kiss him ardently once again. Their touching was something between the weakest surrender and the strongest assault.

"I don't want to hurt you again." He whispered urgently against her lips.

"We won't get used to it unless we practice." She grinned.

"So we better get somewhere else quickly." He looked down to check if someone was paying attention to them and since nobody was, he turned invisible with her and flew out of the carnival all the way back to her house where they could spend the whole night together not worrying about being quiet… after all, her parents were somewhere in Spain.

It was a wonderful night for Danny, but Sam still hadn't felt anything other than pain, but of course, she hadn't said anything, she didn't want to disappoint him and she was sure that next time it would be better. She just hoped he wouldn't ask her, that she had faked well enough.

But, of course, he had to ask…

"How was it?" He mumbled the words while kissing her lazily across the face.

"Good." She answered immediately. When she answered like that, Danny noticed that she was lying. He sighed and prompted up in one elbow.

"You don't have to lie. Just tell me I didn't hurt you again." He asked, carefully. It wasn't working as well as he thought it would.

"You didn't." She smiled, holding him close. She hated lying to him. "I'm sure next time will be amazing."

"I'll make sure it will be." He kissed her again, but he couldn't hide how hurt he was. "You must tell me how to make it better. I don't know how to make it work for you."

"I don't know, either too." She answered quietly, kissing him with an ardent passion that was missing while they were intimate. "But we will have to figure it out together."

"It's unfair that only I enjoy this." He said, completely frustrated by the situation. "Can I try something?"

"You can do whatever you want." She answered, seriously, but still suspicious. They were both too innocent and everything was sweeter… but at the same time, utterly unsatisfactory.

Fourteenth Day Back In Amity Park

Sam sat down on the table and was checking the menu when a red rose was placed in front of her. She lifted her eyes to see Danny smiling at her. He wasn't on his usual jeans and shirt, instead he had dressed up elegantly, it wasn't too much for the occasion, but surely he seemed to be thinking of it as something special.

She accepted the rose and he sat up in front of her. She laughed at herself. He was trying to be polite and seduce her. He had no idea how boyish it looked like to her. It was adorable, but she wouldn't give in. It didn't matter how much he did for her, she wouldn't give him another chance and she wasn't going to put her life and feelings in the hands of a boy ever again.

"Why are you so dressed up?" She asked with a coy smile.

"We're in a fancy restaurant, that's why." Danny said. In the back of his mind he kicked himself. He had never taken her to a restaurant after they had been dating for real. Actually the only time he had taken her to eat out was when she had suggested doing exactly what Kyle was doing to her. "You're very dressed up yourself. You look beautiful in green." He didn't dare comment, but he noticed she was wearing the necklace he had given her.

The dress Sam was using had been a gift from Jude, he had found her right color and he wouldn't let her go out unless she was wearing something green. She smiled at him and looked down at herself. Her dress was very modest; with a tight top and loose from the hips down. It almost looked like a green tennis uniform.

"Thank you." She replied quietly, barely hiding a satisfied smile. Danny looked at her, almost seductively, he had never looked at her that way before and she felt a pang in the heart. Was that how he got all other girls in his bed? Being sweet and smiling like that?

He reached out and poured more wine in her glass. She took a deep breathe. Whatever was going to happen tonight, maybe it was a good idea to drink before it. She was very sad that she didn't recognize him anymore. He was just a shadow of the boy she had dated once.

"You were perfect…" She said, looking down and closing her eyes, not wanting to see that look in his eyes any longer. She felt his fingers on her chin, lifting her face softly to make her look at him in the eyes.

"I still am." He said quietly. "Just give me sometime."

"What will happen to us?" She asked, quietly. "I don't want compromise, but I don't mind seeing you." She whispered, taking a sip on her wine, almost hoping he hadn't heard her.

"Are we lovers, then?" He grinned, obviously teasing her. But he was right. If they were going to meet and sleep together they were lovers.

"I just want to make sure it won't complicate things." Sam said, speaking like it was business. "If we're going to keep doing this there mustn't be any feelings involved. We'll keep this as long as it makes us happy. If it starts creating any problems we'll finish it immediately. Deal?"

"Deal." Danny agreed quickly.

"There are also more conditions." She said, deciding to be very straight and open with him. "First, we're free to seek other partners. I'm not going to stick with you forever and about you and your little addiction to girls, I must ask you kindly to make sure you don't have any diseases." Danny opened his eyes widely, being completely taken by surprise, he opened his mouth to speak, but Sam continued, "if you sleep with other girls while we're doing this you will tell me because it is the least we can do to protect ourselves."

"Sam, I don't have anything, really." He blushed. "I've been careful."

"I still would like you to make sure." She insisted. "For my peace of mind". She sighed when she realized he was hurt by what she had said. "If one wants more than the other is willing to give, we'll break it up."

"Do we really need all this?" Danny asked, a little too impatient. "All these rules? You said once that a relationship was supposed to be simple, then why can't it be simple? Why can't we just admit we're friends with benefits and do it simply like that?"

"I'm just trying to protect us from deeper heartbreaks." She said quietly.

Danny nodded and wiped his face on his hands. He was getting more flushed than he normally would. He was impatient to get out of that restaurant, go to her room and do what he had been dreaming about the whole week, but accordingly to her rules, she'd want to wait for the result of his exams.

"I just think that this is too complicated and restricted for just one summer." Danny sighed. "I think that spontaneous relationships have deep meanings, they are purer."

"Our relationship were never pure, Danny." Sam pointed out. "We started as a pretend game and you just realized I was an option because you were scared that someone nice as Kyle would take me away from you." Finally, Sam was going to tell him everything she had thought about their relationship. "You just saw me because Valerie was taken!"

"There you come again with this story." Danny replied tiredly. "I told you it's nothing like that. I fancied her, okay, but you were the only one!"

"Whatever," She replied, not in the mood to talk to him while he kept defending himself. "We weren't supposed to talk about this." She settled her empty cup back on the table and eyed him carefully. "We won't talk about the past while we're in this… game. I can't handle it."

"Fine with me." Danny answered tiredly. "You had always been a difficult one."

"If you're unhappy we can stop this right now." She pointed out.

"I'm not unhappy." Danny said, placing his hands on top of hers. "I want this. I think I need this more than anything."

"Can we go up to my room then?" Sam smiled, almost in monotone. "There is… if you brought… protection."

"I thought you'd never ask." He grinned. He stood up, pushed the chair for her to stand to, grabbed her coat and followed her out of the restaurant and up to her room.

Sam stopped in front of the door and turned to him, wanting to make sure that this is where they were going and there wouldn't be any regrets.

"Once I close the door… there will be no more talking, okay?" She begged; her eyes were filling up with tears. She had never trusted anyone as much as she was trusting Danny at that moment. She was allowing him to mend the heart he had broken.

"I'm not allowed to talk to you?" He asked, confusedly.

"Not while we're doing it." She answered quickly.

Danny gave her a reassuringly smile. She hadn't changed as much as he had. She was still the same careful girl that thought about every possibility before making a final decision. He cupped her face in his hand and reached behind her to open the door. He bet down and kissed her passionately. He was able to open the door and walk her inside without unlocking their lips.

He closed the door behind him and for that moment on there was no more talking.

Three days later, Danny and Sam bumped into each other in the park. They smiled and decided to walk around together as if it was a normal day after high school. It was in that park where they had their first kiss and so there was a strange familiarity in that whole thing. It was like they had met at that moment completely honest and being satisfied that they could have each other anytime, there was no need to hurry somewhere and do it like rabbits.

Sam and Danny, at that park in that day, were again those too kids that had agreed to pretend to date and were completely sincere to each other about their feelings. They were happy to find out that it still was easy to talk to each other. The barrier of time was down and the grudges were quickly forgotten.

"I have a funny story about my university; do you want to hear it?" Sam said, as they walked happily by each other side.

"Sure." He grinned, putting his hands on his pockets and kicking playfully every rock that showed up in front of him.

"Okay, so I had a small time between classes and I went to the bathroom and my friend went with me (you know, girls always go to the bathroom together) and she had just recovered from a breast enlargement surgery." Sam began saying and Danny was quickly interested in the subject.

"This sound like it won't end well." He commented.

"I am a curious girl, you know, the bathroom was empty and I asked her how it felt like. She told me it felt a normal, just a little 'harder' than usual. She also said that she wouldn't feel anything for a while (three months I guess)."

"Are you interested in going through a surgery, too?" Danny frowned slightly. "Because if you do, I must tell you that you don't need it at all."

"Shut up and let me continue." She laughed, hitting in the arm, playfully. "I asked her if I could touch them and she said I could."

"No way!"

"Yes way; and there I was grabbing my friend's breast when a girl walked through the door and saw the scene. She blushed, turned around and ran away."

"That was awkward!" Danny laughed.

"Now it is your turn to tell me a fun story." She smiled, bouncing like a little girl.

"I don't have a fun story, really." Danny said, amused by how childish and adorable she looked like that.

Sam stopped bouncing and looked at him, quietly studying him. He was still easy to read, she concluded. He was struggling to accept what he was and not what he had wanted to be. Maybe the hard times they were having in understand each other was because they had not accepted that they had become first.

She smiled and held his hand. She wasn't going to compare him to the boy he had been, it was unfair. From now on, she was going to concentrate on knowing this handsome boy all over again.

"Can I ask you what we are doing?" He asked, not looking into her eyes, but staring at the cloudy sky.

"Enjoying sex while we're full aware of the consequences?" She tried explaining, giving him a small awkward smile. "It's exhilarating and fearful at the same time."

"Aren't you afraid that this physical thing may lead us to something deeper?" Danny asked quietly.

"Not really." She smiled reassuringly at him. "Did you ever love me? I mean, did you thing that what you felt for me was the big Love?"

"There were a few moments when I thought it was." He answered quietly, tightening their hands together.

"But it is over now, right?" She said, not really minding his answer. Their relationship was over and it was good while it lasted.

"It is… and I can't help but wonder if it was true." He said. He spotted the tree where they had shared their first kiss and dragged her there to sit down next to him. Sam smiled adoringly when she noticed that it was their special spot. "How can you handle it?" He looked at her, hurt and disappointed at himself. She looked at him confusedly and he continued "I mean, you accepted that love doesn't exist, but when I think about it it's like there's nothing left to believe in."

"You mean there's no real need to stay in a relationship." She pointed out, understanding completely what he meant. "If attraction is all that is left it means that the only thing to look forward to is the sex." She leaned on his shoulder and he sighed, helplessly. He was trapped in a crisis and a philosophy he couldn't control. He couldn't get a grip on his own life. "And if sex is all that was left then the morals go downhill with it."

"That's what is bothering me, I think." Danny said. "I can't feel anything towards anyone anymore. That's immoral, right? I feel guilty for following what I believe to be true. Shouldn't I settle down with just one girl? Shouldn't I raise a family? That's what my parents expect of me, at least."

"Danny." Sam laughed animatedly. "When I met Kyle that was exactly the situation I was in. My parents wanted me to settle down and I refused. You just have to choose what you want." She intertwined their fingers, bringing his hand up to kiss it lightly. "Do want to do what people expect you to or what you really want?"

"If I keep doing what I do people will look at me like a bastard." He pointed out.

"People are naïve, Danny." Sam said, sitting back straight again, looking at the lake and not to his face anymore. "They want to live morally, but they don't realize that there's no room for morals in capitalism at all. We're all just hypocrites. Think about it, how cruel is it to believe that there is someone for everyone? Do you really believe in soul mates? Can you really find The One in 6.4 billionpeople walking on Earth, how can you possibly believe you can find this person?"

"You're always up to statistics, aren't you?" He grinned at her.

"Well, you started it." She answered. "I still think it's cruel to believe that you can be happy with just one person."

"At least we have an ideal to look forward to." He replied.

"That's the problem, the ideals!" She said, becoming restless. That subject always brought an infuriate power over her. She hated how philosophy worked, how misleading Reason could be and the more she read about it more disappointed she'd get. "You'll look forward to the ideal relationship, but you'll never get it because it is an ideal! You're unsatisfied because you won't get what you want instead of being happy with what you got. That's how we were educated to think, we always want more and more… and we'll never get everything."

"Should I settle down?" He asked finally, after thinking about what she was saying. How could she be so cold and analytical and yet so pure and passionate?

"Not if you don't want to." She said, quietly. She didn't like the life he was having now, but she couldn't say anything against it. If he was happy it was better to leave it like that. Deep down everybody knew about what she had just said about love, life and philosophy, but ignorance is bliss, they choose not to see the difficulties (or the simplicity) of their actions and Danny seemed to be uncomfortable to finally have found out that life wouldn't be always a party.

"You had been the one for me." Danny said. "I never dated for real after you, but… but I don't think I could do it again. I never found anyone I could talk to and kiss for so long without getting bored." He felt himself becoming emotional. If she was anyone else he would have stood up and walked away before they noticed his weakness, but somehow it was easy and necessary to open up with her. "Why the hell did I leave you?"

"You should tell me this." She shrugged. "You thought you'd be happier with someone else."

"And I didn't and yet I can't go back and ask you to be mine again because you don't love me anymore."

"Don't talk like that." She replied gently, turning towards him and kissing him lightly on the lips. "You will always have a special room in my heart."

"Then, why can't we be together?"

"Because we're launching careers!" She pointed out, "And feelings are confusing and misleading. What if we stayed together, missed the opportunities will never have again and stop feeling attracted once more? We can't guarantee it won't happen." She sighed frustrated and stood up. "Besides, you wouldn't be able to settle down now. As horrible as it sounds, you've become promiscuous. You won't get used to just one girl so soon. You'll eventually miss the adventures."

"Is that how I changed?" he stood up, too, brushing the leaves out of his clothes.

"Not really." She smiled, placing a careful hand on his cheek. "You used to shave everyday back there."

"Hey, I forgot it today, don't tease me." He elbowed her playfully.

"But you're still cute." She replied, laughing, then she became quiet and found his deep blue sea eyes. She was going to kiss him when he stopped her. "What?"

"Let's not spoil this day, okay?" He smiled. "It was so perfect that we should end it before we say something to ruin it."

"It was perfect, indeed." She smiled. "This is where we had our first kiss… maybe it is the place that makes everything perfect. It's so poetic."

"You know… I mean… promise me that…" His voice cracked slightly and he looked away for a second before continuing. "Promise me that before you leave we're going to have our last kiss here."

"Sounds perfect." She said, offering him that smile that was so unique and so hard to witness. Danny's heart melted immediately.

Exactly at that moment, as the sun set in the horizon turning the blue lake in an orange crystal, Danny knew that the only way for him to ever settle down when if he had that adorable girl for him. She was the closest thing he had ever gotten to an ideal. She wasn't perfect, but she was perfect for him.

There were few items required for a good relationship: communication, friendship and intimacy. At that moment they had it all.

**A/N - Hey there, it's me again. This chapter goes for you guys who like romance and also a few complications. I hope Sam's opinions are clear and Danny's regret, too BUT it won't be that easy to get them together, you know.**

**I wish I could review several stories, onlyI get an error every time I try, so I people, if you check out my favorite stories (actually, I want to update them tomorrow, 'cuz I found some new ones I like) several stories that I would've reviewed if I could are there. You guys rock!**

**And here's some replies to a few reviews I got, since I get an error when I try.**

**Kats02980416 - Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy your long reviews? Seriously, I adore them all. Sam getting drugged surelly helped to make her easier to deal with, after all in her right state of mind (in character) she'd never do the things she did with him. And... yeah, Danny was a little agressive last chapter, but I enjoyed bringing that out on him, I mean, he had to burst sooner or later.Just wait to see what I've got for the next chapters, lol. **

**Galateagirl - You're quite fast to catch my drifts, lol. Don't worry, Jude is gay and he likes to kiss her sometimes. Nah, it's not as weird as it sounds, after all he was inspired by real people -walks off whistling. Btw, I love you fanfics Cuffed and Welcome to the Games. They rock.**

**makeupfreak999 - I was very inspired when I wrote that line, I'm glad you like it and there's no need to cry -here -have a tissue.**

**cutereviewgirl - Here! I've updated it just for you. And don't worry, I'm not in vacations, I'm in my winter break from college, BUT I'm still working so, I'll keep updating. **

**Anon- Yeah, my point in the whole fanfic was to create an adult relationship, I missed a little of reality in my last works.**

**Well, I couldn't reply to all (It's 5am! Jeez, I should be sleeping!), maybe next time. Thanks for reviewing, review again andmake my day brighter!**

**Thanks again Rae!  
**


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six**_

They would only be together weekly. Sam wouldn't call him and he wouldn't call her. They met randomly and went straight to the hotel or the apartment. As the meetings passed by, they had a silent agreement that the day would always be Sunday afternoon. Danny wouldn't have to work and Sam wouldn't be in a hurry to leave him afterwards.

They never talked behind closed doors. They would just cuddle sweetly and enjoy their moments together. They had the Sundays to lose themselves in lust and all others six days to talk and understand each other.

Danny couldn't help, but count the days they had together. They had only a month and half left, counting the Sundays there would be just six more days. That day they had met in the café and after some hours talking joyfully about the times when they were fourteen and Danny had been sucked into the thermos. Sam had been just his sidekick at that time, always been by his side no matter what.

He was happy to see that he could always make her laugh. The relationship they had developed those few days had been more than perfect. He would look forward to Sunday every day of the week and since they had just one day he could never get tired of her.

Before they entered the room and the talking stopped she slowly opened up to him. He had asked her once if she was taking medicine for depression and she confirmed it. She never told him why she had started taking it in the first place. He had insisted, but she only had gotten upset.

It was unfair that she wouldn't open up like he had. She wasn't being sincere and it hurt him deeply. She always asked about his life, ghosts and college, but when he asked about hers she'd just change the subject.

After they exited the café and entered Sam's room, he decided to finally end that quiet moment. They kissed hungrily and held each other until they were both naked on the bed. They had ended up in the bathtub a few hours later and Sam decided that there was the best place to cuddle, while laying on his chest in the hot water.

Danny sighed contentedly and brushed a wet bang away from her eyes. She lifted her eyes lazily to stare at him. She was hoping for another round when he broke their no-talking terms.

"Tell me how you're feeling." He requested, whispering gently to her. He saw her frown slightly when he started talking, but she answered him anyway.

"I'm happy, but… insecure. But I am thinking that even if I end hurt, I won't regret this."

"Why don't you tell me more about your life? Have you tried talking to your mom? Did your father call?"

"My mom won't answer my calls." She replied quietly "And my father just disappeared. But that's not important." She reached up and kissing him hotly on the lips and he pulled away a few moments later, even though it was hard to break that kiss.

"What happened to you in university?" He asked again. "Did you try anything new there?"

"Never mind." She insisted, trying to shut him up by kissing him again, but he didn't let her.

"Tell me."

"I didn't try anything really. I didn't get a boyfriend or anything." She replied, but he raised an eyebrow at her and she sighed. "Fine, I tried drugs and that's all."

"How was it?" he asked, trying not to sound disappointed.

"Just weird."

"Have you been taking them often?" He insisted and Sam got really upset that he was interrogating her.

"Just when I go out, what's the point of this conversation again? If you're worried, I'm not addicted." She sat up, splashing water all over the bathroom. The mood was completely ruined.

"Maybe you're not addicted to drugs, but what about that medicine, again?" Danny asked, doing his best to control his voice so he wouldn't show her how upset he was.

"That's necessary." She replied. "The doctor prescribed it."

"Why did you go to the doctor in the first place?"

"Danny, don't spoil the night." She asked, not being able to stop her tears. "Forget about it. I'm fine."

"You need medicine to be fine…" He whispered urgently at her, grabbing her chin and lifting her face.

"Do you really want to know?" She asked, her tears were running down her face like rivers. She stood up and wrapped herself around a towel, "I tried to kill myself by mixing vodka and aspirins because I couldn't take you out of my mind!" She ran into the room, taking her clothes and dressing up real quick. Danny ran after her. "That's why I told you there shouldn't be talking! You weren't supposed to find out!"

"What?" Danny was very shocked when he heard that. The last thing he expected was Sam doing something as drastic as suicide. "Did you really?"

"Well, I don't remember, but… Jude saw it. I just remember a headache and waking up in the hospital." She sobbed.

"Sam, I don't think it's a big deal. You can trust me." Danny said, trying to calm her down, if she didn't remember, it could mean that she didn't try to commit suicide, that she was confused because of the drugs and ended mixing everything. "Really!"

"Go back to Michelle, Danny." She cried out. "Maybe you should try going back to Valerie. We're over."

"No, we're not." Danny said, grabbing her by the arms and spinning her around. "I love you."

"No you don't!"

"Don't judge what I feel. You don't know a thing about Love!" He replied, trying to kiss her, but she fought her way out of his arms.

"And you don't understand compromise! You look at other girls even when you're with me, but you don't see me throwing it at your face!" She cried. "We just had six Sundays left, Danny… why did you ruin it?"

"I want to know you! I want to help you!" He said, taking one step towards her and she retreated back into the wall until she was cornered. "I think we can help each other out of our addictions." He said carefully.

"You broke my heart and you're trying to fix it now!"

"I'm just trying to help you!" He said, raising his voice dangerously, but he immediately regret it when he saw her closing her eyes, like she was getting ready to be beaten. That look frightened him. Was she scared of him? "I'm sorry."

"You can't help me." She whispered.

"Let me try."

"How?"

"You don't take your pills." He said simply. "If you're feeling upset you come to me and we will work it out, the same goes for me, if I feel the need to go with a girl, I'll go with you."

"Why are you so obsessed with me? You can have any girl!" She pointed out weakly, sliding down the wall until she sat on the ground, holding her knees to her chest.

"Because I want you and not any other girl." He explained carefully, kneeling by her side. "Don't be scared to be loved just the way you are."

But he didn't get a response. She just sobbed for the rest of the night and he never left her side.

Five Years Ago

Sam had gotten a call from Danny five minutes before the time to leave for school; he had overslept and told her to go ahead and not wait for him that he's catch up with her hopefully before the bell rang. She laughed and left her house all by herself the first time in a whole year that she had been dating Danny.

She spotted him on the sky, flying quickly towards school. He hadn't seen her so he just continued his way. She checked her watch and realized that now she was the late one, so she ran. As soon as she turned on school's corner she saw Danny hiding behind a tree as Phantom and coming out as Fenton.

She frowned slightly. He wasn't being careful enough with his secret identity. If she was someone else his cover would've been doomed. She ran towards him ready to give him a speech about being careful, but someone else caught up with him first… and it was a girl… Valerie.

Sam wasn't the jealous type, but at that moment, something inside her snapped. She saw as Valerie walked to Danny, he greeted her politely and then Valerie hugged him. Sam frowned slightly and stopped to watch the scene. Valerie was crying and Danny was holding her as if he didn't know what else to do.

"He did WHAT?" Danny cried out, furious. Valerie nodded and continued sobbing. Sam didn't have to hear what they were saying to know what it was about.

Tucker had broken up with her. And… of course Danny was furious. He had lost the girl because of Tucker the year before and now he had just dumped her. It was like Danny lost his chance with Valerie for nothing.

Sam didn't say anything. She wasn't surprised and wasn't upset. The bell rang and she headed to class. Danny and Valerie saw her pass by; she waved at them, but didn't stop. She noticed Danny wanted to tell her something, sorry perhaps, but she seriously didn't want to hear it at the moment, so she just told him they'd talk later.

Later, meant much later, after class Sam walked home before Danny had a chance to talk to her, Valerie also seemed to want to talk, but she avoided them. Differently from what they must've been thinking Sam's reason for not feeling like talking to them wasn't the fact that Danny and Valerie might have another chance together. She just realized that relationships could be over anytime.

When she realized that a wave of regret hit her with full force. What if she and Danny also broke up sometime soon? She'd regret immensely everything she didn't do to and with him. She wasn't being a good girlfriend. They had been dating for a year and she knew he so desperately wanted to be with her and she had allowed it just twice and both times it had been hell to her.

It wasn't fair with him, she knew it. He was an angel and he never complained or touched her in a way she'd feel offended (actually, she'd never feel offended by anything he did or said, but he seemed to think differently) but she knew that deep inside he was dying with the whole situation.

She made her decision and she picked her cell phone, dialing Danny's number.

Danny was flying towards Sam's mansion as quickly as he could. He had gotten her call exactly at eleven in the night and it freaked him out. He had never gotten a call from her so late and she was telling him to go to her house immediately.

He was worried that she was upset because the whole Valerie thing, he had been busy the whole day trying to talk some sense in Tucker's thick skull and he knew he had neglected Sam that day. He was scared that she was feeling down, that he was up to a very disturbing night of cries and reconciliation, but he wasn't really worried about it. He just wanted to see Sam and be sure that she was all right.

He knocked on her door and found it open. She never left the door open when she was alone at her house (her parents were in China). Danny was suspicious that her call had more to do with ghosts than Valerie. He walked inside the house and closed the door behind him.

He checked the kitchen and found out that he housemaids and butler weren't there. He quickly flew up the stairs and busted into her room breathing heavily, expecting to see her hurt and crying before of a ghost attack or something like that… but what he saw completely took his breath away.

Sam was lying on her bed, sitting facing the door, as if she was expecting him to walk in any minute. She was wearing a black lacy corset, g-strings and… nothing else.

He gulped nervously.

"Sam?" He asked a bit uncertainly. She smiled at him and he gulped again. She leaned down on the pillow, her eyes never leaving his. "W-What are you doing?" He asked with his voice failing horribly, he sounded like he was twelve and couldn't control his maturing voice.

"Hm…" She sat up, blushing furiously, slightly hiding herself. "Don't make me say it." She hugged her pillow, hiding the best she could. "I was just thinking that… maybe…"

Danny thought the scene in front of him completely adorable. He was relieved that she was well… better than that, she wanted him. He turned himself human again and walked slowly towards her. She was blushing madly when he sat down beside her. She really wasn't good at that seducing game (or so she thought, Danny had never seen anything sexier than that sight before him), she was very unsure of herself.

"You don't have to say it." He grinned, cupping her chin and lifting her face up so she'd stare at his eyes. "But you must know that you've just made me the happiest guy ever."

"I was just thinking that maybe you wanted it…" She was truly embarrassed. "I thought that… since Valerie and Tucker broke up, maybe that if one day we ever broke up, I had never… you know… initiated it… I know we didn't go very far, yet, but…"

"You don't have to explain it. Sam." He kissed her lips softly. He felt like torturing her a bit. "But you can continue what you were going to do. I remember you were lying on the pillow…"

"I hoped you'd interrupt me before I embarrassed myself any further." She answered.

"You're not embarrassing yourself. Actually… you're very good at it." He didn't ask permission to kiss her; he didn't ask to touch her. His hands encircled her and brought her as close as he could. "I never thought you had such small panties." He laughed.

"I had to buy it a few hours ago." She hid her face on his chest.

"I really like it." He grinned, putting his hand on her front, helplessly trying to untie the corset. He had never seen one before and he really didn't know how to put that thing off as quickly as he wanted.

He completely gave up working in that corset so he moved to a different tactic, he began kissing from her neck to her ear, enjoying when she shivered under his kisses. She put her hands around his back and felt his muscles flexing under her touch. She couldn't be more grateful for three years of ghost-fighting. He was gorgeous. Why did he stick around with her anyway?

He never thought it was possible to want her so much. He truly loved that girl. He felt more alive than ever before. He finally removed her corset. It wasn't the first time he had seen her bare like that, but he'd never get tired of that sight.

"You're driving me crazy, you know that." He said breathlessly, forcing her to lie down on her back and laying on top of her. She had always been very shy when it came to their intimacy; he was the one, in the two times they had before, to coax her to open herself to him. He was the one who always gently pushed her legs apart, but this time he felt himself going to heaven at the moment she wrapped herself around his waist without him asking.

Maybe, finally, tonight, it was going to be good for both of them.

He collapsed over her chest several minutes later, hugging her close, trying to calm himself. He was dripping sweat, his hair was completely wet and that was far the best experience he had ever had with her. He smiled and prompted himself up on his elbows, each placed on her sides.

He looked at her face, trying to read her expression. While he was dripping, she hadn't sweated a single drop. His smile faded when he noticed frustration tears pooling out of her eyes. She reached up to him and brought him down on top of her again. She wanted their skins close and never separated again.

"You didn't… did you?" He asked quietly breathing her sweet perfume as he buried his face on her neck.

"I'm so sorry, Danny." She cried, letting the tears fall freely, holding him as tightly as she could. "I thought I could this time, but…"

"Don't cry, it's not your fault." He whispered, holding her back. Was he ever going to be able to make her feel what he felt when he was with her? He wanted to make her feel that too, that endless desire, the bursting sensation and the fireworks on the back of his head.

"Do you think I should go to a doctor or something?" She asked quietly. He lifted himself up to stare at her, thinking about what she had just asked him. "Maybe there's a treatment or…"

"You're not sick." He said quickly, sitting up on the bed, parting himself from her to her displeasure. He had his back turned to her; he was staring at the floor. "Eventually you'll feel it, too."

"Danny we've done it three times, that's not normal." She said, sitting up, too.

"We don't do it often enough." He replied. "Does it still hurt?"

"No…" She shook her head, "There wasn't pain this time, but also there wasn't anything else." She leaned forward and rested her chest on his back. "I want to feel it. I want to feel whatever you feel when you make that face."

"Which face?" He asked, curiously, turning around to look at her.

"You'll never know." She answered quietly and naughtily.

"Let's do it again." He announced after a long pause.

"What?" She asked funnily. "But…"

"You WILL feel it, Sam, I promise." He said, forcing a kiss into her mouth, which caught her by surprise at first, but then she completely melted into it.

"Wait…" She said against his lips; "I'll just go to the bathroom. I'll be right back."

"Okay." He replied, looking at her adoringly. That beauty on his arms was his! And he was going to make her feel. He had to.

She untangled herself from his arms and wrapped herself around the sheets before standing up. Danny grinned and pushed the sheets away from her.

"Don't cover yourself. You're beautiful." He said. She smiled, blushing, and let go of the covers, walking into the bathroom as dressed as the day she was born… except for her tattoo.

While she was gone, he felt thirsty, so he decided to go to the kitchen to get a cup of water… but before that he decided to put his boxers on, after all if there was someone else in the house, like servants, he didn't want to have an encounter in the first degree with them.

He sat on the floor to reach his boxers that somehow had ended under the bed. Sam came out of the bathroom and saw him sitting there. She smiled and walked towards him, she was sure that she was going to feel it this time; she had to make him believe it too.

But a tragedy happened. She tripped on her discarded corset. She yelped when she saw that she as going to fall and Danny turned around to look at her, still sitting on the floor. She was very close to him and she was sure he was going to catch her, but he didn't. She landed on her knees… and Danny screamed.

She had fallen with her knees right between his legs, crushing him. She quickly stood up, kneeling carefully beside him, with her mouth open, not knowing what to say. She saw his eyes shutting and opening again full of tears.

"Oh Gosh… I'm so sorry Danny." She said, not knowing what to do. If that wasn't the most embarrassing moment of her life, it surely was close to it. "Can I get you anything?"

But poor Danny could barely talk. The pain was unbearable so he just remained there for several minutes until Sam finally was able to move him to the bed and he was able to groan some words.

"Do you need ice or something?" Sam asked, she had no idea how to make the pain go away. "Maybe we should go to a hospital."

"I'll be fine." He managed to say. "I think we won't be able to do it again today."

"Oh." Sam smiled, holding him close as careful as she could. "I can't believe you're making jokes." She kissed him, as if the pain would go away. "Now I'm taking you to a hospital."

"What are we going to tell them?" Danny whimpered.

"Something not so humiliating."

Two Months Back in Amity Park

Danny had been ten minutes knocking on Sam's hotel room's door and she hadn't answered. It was Sunday and desperately wanted to see her. He was getting worried each passing minute, so he decided to go down to the reception and ask about her.

"Samantha Manson, room 222… let's see… are you Daniel Fenton?" The receptionist asked and Danny nodded. "She left a note for you. She checked out this morning." Danny felt his heart stop and he immediately broke down in sweat. With trembling hands, he picked the letter and opened it.

_Danny,_

_Jude called me and he needs my help. I'll spend the next week with him and hopefully I'll return before next Sunday. _

_Sam_

The deception was beyond anything imaginable. So her friend, the one who was kissing and groping her in the club, needed help and she didn't think twice before running to him. He had the hardest time controlling his jealousy. He wanted to go out and pick some random girl to take home and satisfy his needs, but before he did anything stupid, he called Tucker. He needed to talk and nobody other than Sam would be a better listener than Tucker.

"What did you want to talk about, man?" Tucker asked, as they sat in an empty bar, he was worried that Danny had finished two cups of beer in five minutes and still hadn't said a single word. "Is everything all right with you and Sam?"

"No." Danny said simply, ordering another beer can. He sighed frustrated and decided to start talking. "Sam is away this week to help a friend or something like that, but it wasn't fine even before she left."

He couldn't think of another man touching her, not Jude and surely not Kyle, but he didn't think of how she felt when she knew that uncountable girls had touched him.

"You had said you two were still involved somehow, is she playing the difficult one?" Tucker asked in one of his rare serious moments.

"We're not together… as boyfriend and girlfriend again." Danny knew it wouldn't matter if the told Tucker about everything. Tucker wouldn't tell anyone and Sam never got upset about it. "As she put it this is just sex. There are no feelings involved." Danny gave out a dry laugh. "Not on her part anyway."

"Does it mean you still like her?" Tucker asked, confused.

"I don't like her _still_. I like her _again_." Danny explained, knowing it sounded very confusing. "It's like I fell for her all over again. It's like I've met someone amazing that she was hiding all these years."

"Isn't it because this time the sex is working?" Tucker asked. "You know that's what you missed back there; maybe it's just something that will wear off like all other girls."

"I don't think so. It has never been this intense before." Danny leaned heavily on the chair, not looking straight at Tucker. "When I am with her I don't feel the need to be with anybody else."

"What about Michelle? You said something similar about her." Tucker insisted. "I don't want to spoil your feelings, dude, I just don't want you to hurt Sam."

"I screwed up with Michelle really bad." Danny said, moving forward very uncomfortably. "Three days after the club episode, Michelle appeared back in the flat, you were out." He said, lowering his voice, making Tucker move forward to hear the story. "I didn't resist and about half an hour later we were back in my room and I couldn't stop thinking about Sam that whole time." Danny whispered urgently. "I called Sam's name and Michelle heard it."

"Oh man…" Tucker closed his eyes, not believing in what he had just heard. "You're obsessed!"

"No, I think I am in love." Danny said. "Because as much as Sam wants it to be just sex, I can't help but talk to her, to want to know her, to yearn to kiss her. This is stronger than ever before."

"Did you tell her that?"

"I did, many times. But she changes the subject, she says I don't really love her and that she doesn't love me, she'll go to L.A. and there's nothing I can do about it!"

"What did she tell you, exactly?" Tucker asked urgently and Danny decided to spill it out at once.

"She told me she tried to commit suicide in university, because she couldn't stop thinking about me. She didn't tell me everything, but I plan on returning the subject shortly." Danny felt the tears running down his cheeks and quickly wiped them away before anybody could see. "My selfishness destroyed her life and now she's giving herself to me willingly, even knowing that I am a womanizer. She has all these absurd rules, like no talking behind closed doors, but she still is with me."

"She loves you beyond comprehension and she still doesn't know it." Tucker grinned. "Does she still go around all skeptical about love, care and all that stuff?"

"Yeah, don't get me wrong, but a relationship with her just… Kafkaesque. You know, it's like feelings and nihilism float around each other in an endless chain of depressive thoughts that leads nowhere. With her the things just are. If you seek a reason behind her actions you'll go around forever after it and never find it because there is nothing there to find." Danny looked up to see Tucker staring back at him completely confused. "Never mind."

"You two are idiots." Tucker said, sitting up straight and looking Danny right into his eyes, saying seriously, maybe that was the most serious moment of his life. "I can't say that you found Love, but you surely found _happiness_." Tucker sighed angrily, "What has changed between you? What was better the past relationship or this confusion you have now?"

"I don't know… in the past it was most like a fairy-tale kind of relationship. It was like we could isolate ourselves in a bubble to feel like we were the last people in the world." Danny knew that back there the innocence and the excitement of the first relationship blinded them and kept them from thinking and reasoning about their lives. Back there they didn't even consider the possibility of college, it was like they didn't have to care about the world outside their bubble because they had this absurd delusion that everything would stay just like it was, that they would be forever teens with no responsibilities and no necessity to yearn money to live.

But time caught up in their little world and they had to think of their futures. What would have happened if both of them had stayed together through college? What if she had stayed in Amity Park and they had continued to date? It sounded absurd, almost like a marriage, but they'd be together for six years now. Could their relationship have lasted that long? Maybe they would end up hating each other eventually. It must have been for the best that they spent four years apart. They learned how to live and deal with the situation not depending on each other for easy ways out.

Now, they were both adults and they didn't know how to be adults, yet. They were trapped in that in-between moment when they hadn't suppressed their childish fears, but were respected like an individual that had a formed mind and opinions. They were insecure and yet they could embrace a world of possibilities.

The barrier that was locking their relationship at the moment was that fear to not recognize in each other the same person they were before, that would lead to a bigger disappointment and they wouldn't even look at each other again eventually. They were afraid to not like each other and who they had become. Because it's always easier to live with a good memory of a best friend than to face the fact that he turned into someone you despise.

Danny thought if that was the reason why Sam told him to not talk to her when they were sharing a bed. Whenever he held her close, enjoying the warmth of their bodies until he fell asleep, he couldn't help but think that something was changing between them. They weren't doing it furiously like the first weeks, but sweet and gentle, taking their time. He always studied her body with the tip of his fingers like a unique artwork that was there in all its glory just for him. Like a hidden treasure.

Their new attraction brought them back together, but there was something bittersweet in that relationship that Danny would never be able to describe. At the same point it was beautiful that they were attracted all over again, the intimacy made them both vulnerable to each other and their fears and anxiousness would be easily read if the other was a little perceptive. Unfortunately they still had too much pride to allow themselves to be vulnerable. Maybe opening up would cause a relief beyond imaginable, but before that, it would bruise their egos and they weren't prepared for that.

Who would jeopardize a future for a flame that was bound to extinguish?

"And how is it now?" Tucker made Danny return from his daydream by insisting on the question.

"Now it is just confusion. A fading picture of how it was back there. Still, this is becoming something new and exciting." Danny sighed. "I can't describe it. Love is too confusing."

"It's supposed to." Tucker grinned. "You know what? Sam is still romantic. She still wants you to be her prince charming; she's just scared to risk her future for a relationship that hadn't worked in the past."

"You're saying that she likes me, but she's holding a grudge." Danny fully understood what Tucker was saying, but he didn't know how to deal with it.

"I think that you just have the say the right thing in the right time and she'll forgive you." Tucker smiled.

Sam hadn't really gone to find Jude. She had received a message from her father, he told her he was in Chicago, which wasn't very far away from Amity Park. It barely took four hours by car. She didn't want to tell Danny or anybody else about her problems with her family. They knew the basics and that was enough.

The address her father had left in the message was a restaurant; he said he'd be there by lunchtime, which would be perfect for them to spend the day together and for her to return before it got too dark. When Sam heard her father's voice she was suspicious he was more scared about the meeting than her.

She walked inside the restaurant and found him sitting down. He hadn't ordered anything, yet. She took a deep breathe and walked towards him, taking off her sunglasses letting him recognize her. He hadn't seen her for four years after all.

"Dad?" He asked quietly and he smiled at her, motioning for her to sit down. He didn't stand up to hug her and she didn't try to hug him either.

"Well, Samantha." He smiled. "How have you been?"

"I don't know. Nice, I guess." She answered, quietly, looking into the menu so that she wouldn't have to look at his face. "I graduated. I'm starting a new job next month."

"I'm glad to see you won't depend on your mother and me for financial support." He replied. "How is your mother?" He ordered her a milk shake, because she didn't look hungry at all.

"I don't know, she refuses to talk to me because I asked her about the divorce." Sam looked at her father straight in the face. "Tell me what happened. I'm not going to ask you to be together, I just want to know."

"It just wasn't working anymore, if it ever did." He answered. "She's upset because she thinks a divorced woman is a failure."

"Did you find somebody else already?" Sam asked, taking the milkshake that had just arrived.

"Not, yet." He sighed heavily and began his apology, something that Sam was expecting since she entered that restaurant. "I'm sorry, I wish you didn't have to go through this."

"It's not a big deal." Sam smiled. "It's your life, I can't ask you to be together if you can't stand each other anymore. I'm not that selfish."

Mr. Manson was surprised by his daughter's acceptance and the day ran along very joyful. He finally understood why she fought traditionalism. They talked about everything, except Danny of course. Unfortunately Mr. Manson had to work and he couldn't take his daughter with him, he gave her the key of his apartment and the address, saying that she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted and that he'd arrive in time for dinner.

And so, Sam took her time to walk around the city and shop. She walked along the beach, staring at the water as far as the eye could see. The sun was slowing setting and everybody had left, because it was getting too cold to be outside sunbathing. She sat on the sand, she had no reason to stay outside, but she didn't want to go to her father's apartment just, yet.

What had just happened to her parents' marriage discouraged her faith in relationships even more. What was love and marriage anyway? Marriage is a dream that becomes a prison after a while. Love is believed to be the answer to all the problems, so of course it is bound to fail. Does monogamy still makes sense? Looking at Danny's actions she was almost sure it didn't.

To a relationship really work the spouses have to repress their individual needs in order to do good for the couple. Nobody could be that selfless extraordinary for so long and not suffer from depression or become a psychopath.

How could it be so cruel? Love is evil and yet it is irresistible.

She stood up and walked for more fifteen minutes along the beach before going back to her father's apartment. On the way, she crossed an old couple. They must have been around their eighties and they were dancing on the sand, laughing in the moonlight and enjoying each other's company while they still had them.

Why couldn't she be like them? Would it be wonderful to grow old and still be happy to be with that special someone? Her grandmother had being in love with her grandfather for forty years and still cried his death even when he had been gone for more than ten years.

Sam was torn between her nihilism and her romantic side. She missed being that naïve.

She missed her clueless Danny.

**Here I go, another chapter ready and ready to answer more reviews. Check out after the replies there's a sneak peak for the next chapter:**

Raven of the Night676 – I'm glad you got the spirit of this story and you're right, Danny won't be that understanding after all I'm writing him as the romantic one in their relationship. He's still a dreamer.

Fey Phantom – Hello, well, I agree with you, but Sam doesn't believe in long-term relationships, so she wouldn't miss a job opportunity because of a 'weakness' of the heart, after all a career is something that will mostly guarantee you will have a decent life.

strange organized chaos – Jude is a sweet boy and he's part of an arc that I'm building up, just wait a couple of chapters. And Sam is a very serious person, she's doing everything to not let her heart be broken again, she's very sensible while Danny is the sensitive one. Things will get cuter, this chapter was the end of Sam's struggling I assure you, she's finally going to go with the flow ('til the end of summer at least). And thank you so much for the compliments, I'm flattered.

Immoral Burnings – Hello Rae, I can see that Jude suddenly became an important character even thought I was planning on giving him a small role. Anyway, you'll like to see that he'll be back. I like to give more layers to the characters, specially Sam, I think she's the greatest character in the show 'cuz she has a façade to put on. I love to explore that. Anyway, I probably told you all this already. Lol. And they're not in your mind yet, are they? See? I'm helping!

Cutereviewgirl – Well, for now all I can tell you is that they like each other a lot, but Love-Love? Well… that's one of the mysteries I'm holding 'til the last chapter, lol. I know, I'm evil. And about the lemons, well… I answered that question to Melis2a, just check below.

Melis2a – I don't write lemons 'cuz I'm not very comfortable writing graphic stuff, yet and also because lots of underage teens read this, I didn't want to spoil the fun for them and I'd like to let it open to everyone be able to read it. Usually this site bans every story that had graphic contents in it and I won't risk losing this story even because I still don't have a backup for this. Anyway, I'll try to get spiced up, without actually writing the lemons, kay?

Saffyre Neko – Let your imagination fill the blank spaces I leave out for the lemons. There's another thing about lemons that I'd like to say, usually when an author leave out the details it instigates the reader to create their own version for that part and it's usually the most fun for you guys if you fill up the blank lemons, after all you'll imagine it the way YOU want, the way YOU fell more attracted to. If I wrote about a position you don't like you'd go 'ewww' and jump the lemon anyway. Tell me, isn't it more fun this way? It's almost interactive! I let you write the story with me. Lol.

**And now guys, a small teaser for the next chapter:**

_(…) Next he pulled her top off and grounded their hips together. Sam closed her eyes, feeling something that she had never felt before. She was happy and was sure that this time she was going to be able to share with him everything he felt in the previous times. _

_"What the hell is going on here, SAMANTHA?"_

_Danny and Sam froze when they heard Sam's father's voice shouting angrily across the music room. They looked to the door to find a very angry man and a horrified woman. (…)_

**Who knows? If you review it may come out sooner… - author grins evilly before running away –.**


	7. Chapter 7

**_Chapter Seven_**

Danny had the hardest day at work on Wednesday. The job in Axion Labs would lead him straight to the space like he had always dreamed of, but the one who owned the lab was his archenemy Vlad Masters so he was working really hard and fully alert at the same time. He opened the front door of his apartment and didn't even have the time to turn around to close it when he smelled a familiar perfume that soothed all his fears.

His vision was obscured by a mass of long raven hair, his lips were attacked insanely and his bones were being crushed by a strong embrace.

"Sam… What are you doing here?" He managed to ask when she stopped assaulting his lips and moving lower to his neck.

"I missed you." She said, lifting herself up to look at him in the eyes. His heart broke when he saw that she was crying desperately. "I want to be with you." She bent down again giving him a bruising kiss. "I don't want to grow up, yet!"

"It's not like we had a choice." He brushed the tears away from her face. "Don't cry, beautiful."

"I need you, I don't know for how long, but I do." She chocked, crying on his chest. "How am I going to choose between you and my career? This is so unfair."

"We'll figure it out." Danny said, rolling on top of her, gazing into her startled face. He looked down and saw that she was wearing a purple dress, much like the one she was wearing on the Valentine Ball, on the night they had started dating.

"I figured that if I was going to give you another chance, we should start it right, with a dance and everything." She smiled sweetly at him. "I want to be a child again, with you." She kissed him softly on the lips, whispering immediately afterwards "Dance with me."

Danny laughed happily and stood up, bringing her up with him. He closed the door that was open the whole time and took off his jacket. Sam stood still watching him. He put a CD on the stereo and walked all the way back to her across the room, advancing slowly and seductively; Sam's breath caught on her through when she saw him giving her a look that she had never witnessed before. Just that single look made her feel completely beautiful.

And then the song started and Sam couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!  
Tu pure, o, Principessa,  
nella tua fredda stanza,  
guardi le stelle  
che fremono d'amore  
e di speranza.

(Translation:

None must sleep! None must sleep!  
And you, too, Princess,  
in your cold room,  
gaze at the stars  
which tremble with love  
and hope!)

That song was Nessun Dorma, her favorite piece in an opera. Danny hated operas, why did he have the CD in his collection?

"Back when we were pretending…" Danny started, taking her hands in his and pulling her closer. He moved slowly, a dance should be instinctive and not a choreography, much like their relationship. "You went in a date with Kyle and he said you were like Turandot. I was curious and when I came across the CD I bought it so I could know how this princess really was like and why you liked her so much."

Ma il mio mistero e chiuso in me,  
il nome mio nessun sapra!  
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo diro  
quando la luce splendera!

(translation:

But my mystery is locked within me,  
no-one shall know my name!  
No, no, I shall say it as my mouth  
meets yours when the dawn is breaking!)

"You started listening to opera because of me?" She asked, as if it was ridiculous and delightful at the same time.

"I must admit I like this opera." He grinned. "And Kyle was right. You are like Turandot. You're scared of love, but you can't help but surrender to it." Sam closed her mouth and tried to blink her tears away without him noticing, but it was useless. He didn't show any sign that he had seen, though, she was embarrassed enough as it was.

Ed il mio bacio sciogliera il silenzio  
che ti fa mia!  
(Il nome suo nessun sapra!...  
e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!)

(Translation:

And my kiss will break the silence  
which makes you mine!  
(No-one shall know his name,  
and we, alas, shall die!))

"You're my lover, not my prisoner." He continued. "You're free to go whenever you want. Don't be scared of letting go." He softly kissed her burning forehead. She closed her eyes to concentrate just on the sensation of his lips tenderly caressing her face.

Dilegua, o notte!  
Tramontate, stelle!  
Tramontate, stelle!  
All'alba vincero!  
vincero, vincero!

(Translation:

Vanish, o night!  
Fade, stars!  
At dawn I shall win)

It was relieving to Danny, hugging Sam and spinning around with her to the fading music. That was his place. He belonged in her arms and he'd do everything to stay there.

There was something between them that was more valuable than everything else they would find in their lives and Danny wouldn't trade that for all gold in the world, he could be selfish, but if he had to choose between the lives of a thousand strangers and that feeling he had in Sam's arms, he'd choose her without a second thought.

"I lied to you." She said quietly, resting her cheek on his chest. "I went to see my father and he told me everything about the divorce." Danny couldn't see her face, only the top of her head and her perfumed hair. "When I was with him I was so scared to make the same mistake he made. But then I met this old couple… they were dancing on the beach. They were happy like they were the last two people on the world."

"You thought they were fooling themselves, didn't you?" Danny gave a small chuckle, trying to cheer her up.

"Yeah, I thought they were, but at the same time they're happy being fools…"

"You think too much for your own good." Danny leaned down and kissed her. "I'll kiss you every time you start thinking that much." He knew she was tired of playing detached when she was dying inside, he knew she was tired of being lonely.

Right there inside that apartment, they forgot all problems, freedom was found among four walls. Right there they found the small world that had long been lost. They were children playing tag again; he was that small boy asking if babies had anything to do with chicken eggs.

Danny slowly opened his eyes when he heard some noise coming from the bathroom, next to his room. He looked around and realized that Sam wasn't lying next to him. The bed was still warm, which meant she had just gotten up. He sighed and turned around, sitting on the edge of the bed, still sleepy and stood up, following the noise all the way inside the bathroom.

Sam was standing by the sink, trying to open a bottle of her anti-depressive pills. Danny leaned against the threshold, with his arms crossed over his chest. She didn't see him; she was really frustrated that the bottle wouldn't open. He frowned and moved forward, when he did that, she finally realized he was there, he took the bottle from her hands and opened it. She smiled, but before she could thank him he emptied the bottle in the toilet.

"Hey, why did you do that? I need to take one every morning!" She yelled, taking the bottle from his hands, but finding it completely empty.

"Look at me." He whispered quietly, stepping towards her and cupping her cheeks with his hands. "Forget about the medicine. You don't need it."

"I do, the doctor prescribed it." She said, almost helplessly. He noticed she was worn out, for some unknown reason.

"Remember when I said we'd help each other out of our addictions? That's what I'm going to do, Sammy." He shorted the distance between them and kissed her lips softly. "I love you too much to let you think you need anti-depressives when you're just 22 years old. You're stronger than that and you know it."

"Danny, that's not true." She tried to say, tried to explain why it was so important she did that treatment right, so she could be cheerful again, but he didn't let her talk. He kept kissing her and licking her neck hotly, completely making her forget what she was going to tell him.

She closed her eyes and finally returned his kisses, still feeling frustrated that she couldn't get her medicine, but somehow the fire that Danny was building up inside her was a very good way to take the frustration out. It wasn't fair that he was manipulating her psychologically like that, but still it was wonderful to feel his hands caressing and grasping her everywhere imaginable.

While Danny kissed her, he was drowning in his own sensations, but slowly he returned form the blissful and careless joy he felt every time he touched her to notice something that made his blood boil in anger. When he invaded her mouth with his tongue he could taste alcohol.

He broke free from her and completely ignored her cute sounds of protests and held her by her shoulders, distant enough from him so he could talk to her without being distracted by her body heat.

"Sam… it's just 9am and you're drunk." He said angrily. "You were going to take your medicine drunk! Are you nuts!"

"I'm not drunk!" She protested angrily. "I drank a little just to feel well, besides I've always done that. It's nothing to worry about."

"I didn't know it was that bad…" Danny whispered to himself. His lovely Sam was completely addicted to alcohol, medicine and drugs… He let go of her and went to his kitchen, Sam ran after him to see what he was going to do and saw as he opened the fridge, his mini-bar and everything that had food and beverages inside. He emptied all the bottles of alcoholic drinks in the sink and threw all the empty bottles in the garbage. She controlled herself as she saw him doing that, she didn't say a single word, just watched him quietly. "I'm going to make you better, I promise." He walked to her and kissed her fervently, returning to the where they had stopped in the bathroom.

Sam didn't protest at that moment.

Five Years Ago

One month after the small accident Sam and Danny had in her house, Sam was sitting alone in the couch in her huge house completely by herself, watching a movie. Danny was supposed to meet her after detention (how could he have detention EVERY day?) and according to her watch, he was ten minutes late.

Sam's parents were finally returning home that day and she was about to know the hell of having her parents by her side daily all over again. She could kiss her privacy and make outs in the kitchen goodbye, with her parents home, she'd be lucky if she was able to spend five minutes alone with Danny inside her house.

She felt a cold breeze caress her neck as it gently lifted her hair, making her shiver. Sam recognized the invisible kiss immediately. She turned her head so she could find the invisible teasing lips to desperately return the kiss. A strong desire busted inside her chest and for a moment she knew she could spend the eternity lost in that sweet moment.

Danny chuckled softly and turned visible, slowly breaking her insistent kiss. She took a moment or two to open her eyes after they broke apart, as if she could still taste him even when he wasn't touching her.

"On the way here," He started, as she opened her eyes and grinned at him. "I saw a girl playing the cello." He grinned back. "And the sight reminded me that I've just seen you play piano once and I just saw it because I sneaked a peak when you weren't looking. When are you going to play for me?"

"Oh, Danny… I can't play that well and…" She started, obviously she was been modest, because she knew she was a very good player.

"Please?" He made his adorable lost puppy eyes and Sam groaned in frustration, standing up and walking to the music room, in which was beautiful white piano was placed. That room was filled with instruments, violins, cellos, guitars, saxophones and some others instruments that Sam's father played.

As she walked towards the room, Danny had his breath taken away. She had changed her clothes from the ones she had been in school. She was wearing a long hippie skirt and a small top that barely covered more than a bra. Those were her clothes to stay home, comfortable and that wouldn't get on her way. He saw her tattoo that mostly of the time was covered and remembered when he kissed it for the first time while the skin was still healing.

Her looks from behind was something that could drive Danny completely crazy. That gothic cross was the sexiest thing he had ever seen in his life and because he most saw her covered or face-to-face, he almost never had the time to admire the beautiful work of art she had on her skin.

"Are you going to stand there all day?" She asked, turning around and noticing that he was drooling over her tattoo.

"I'm coming!" He said quickly, turning human and running after her. She didn't bother closing the door after all they were completely alone. When he entered the room, she was already sitting in front of the piano, thinking which song to play. "So…" He looked at her quietly. "What are you going to play?"

"I can't think of anything but mushy songs... you're going to hate it."

"Hey!" He replied indignant. "Try me!"

She looked at him skeptically, but started the song anyway.

Danny rolled his eyes and sat down beside her, watching as her fingers played neatly along the keys.

"I've been searching a long time  
For someone exactly like you  
I've been travelin' all around the world  
Waiting for you to come through

Someone like you make it all worthwhile  
Someone like you keeps me satisfied  
Someone exactly like you."

Indeed, Danny didn't like the rhythm very much. How could that girl always be right about him? How could she know that he wasn't going to like it? Their musical preferences were very different; he liked rock, heavy metal and hardcore music, of course with the good and old blues. She liked electronic music, opera, jazz, romantic and instrumental songs.

"I've been doin' some soul searchin'  
To find out where you're at  
I've been up and down the highway  
In all kinds of foreign lands

"Someone like you makes it all worthwhile  
Someone like you keeps me satisfied"

His eyes were filled with the sight of her mouth singing and her fingers pressing the keys in the piano. His eyes traveled from her hands to up her arms to the delicate line of her long neck and her beautifully shaped chin.

"I've been all around the world  
Marchin' to the beat of a different drum  
But just lately I've realized  
Baby the best is yet to come

Someone exactly like you makes it all worthwhile  
Someone like you keeps me satisfied  
Someone exactly like you."

She lifted her eyes to look at him and he was caught by surprise, he was practically drooling over her, his hands, which previously were resting on her back, now had lowered to her butt, making her stop the music abruptly by taking a shark intake of breath.

Danny never thought that seeing her by the piano would be so arousing. Since the music was already ruined, Sam didn't mind his daring hands that continued to explore her skin, building up the fire that she knew so well. If only the fire wouldn't be reduced to frustration later… but maybe that day it would be different. It was her last chance with Danny before they both were trapped in the silence make out inside her room so they wouldn't wake her parents.

He picked her up from her seat and locked his lips to hers, sitting on her place and putting her on his lap, straddling him. She moaned quietly as he continued to kiss her in desperation. He thanked whoever invented skirts and drew her as close as possible. Her hands found their way underneath his shirt and he quickly removed it, wanting to feel more of her skin against his own.

Next he pulled her top off and grounded their hips together. Sam closed her eyes, feeling something that she had never felt before. She was happy and was sure that this time she was going to be able to share with him everything he felt in the previous times.

"What the hell is going on here, SAMANTHA?"

Danny and Sam froze when they heard Sam's father's voice shouting angrily across the music room. They looked to the door to find a very angry man and a horrified woman. Danny's first action was to hold Sam close to hide her bare chest from their audience.

"Mom… dad…" She chocked out, not knowing what to say. Her face was redder than a tomato; the embarrassment was too much to bear.

"I want to talk to both of you in the living room, right now." Her father yelled, turning around and storming out of the room. Sam's mother followed him quietly, shaking her head in disappointment.

Sam looked at Danny with her eyes filled with tears. He sighed and reached up to wipe the tears away before they fell.

"What are we going to do?" She whispered, worriedly.

"Tell them the truth." Danny said. He was even more worried than she was. "I don't know who it's going to be, but… it's better than make up some story, right? Besides, I won't tell them I'm sorry for sleeping with you, I'm not sorry at all." He helped her stand up and gave her the top, while he dressed his own shirt and tried to calm himself to look presentable for her parents.

"But, Danny… my parents already hate you, if we tell them we've been sleeping together they may put a restraining order on you!" She panicked. She had no idea what to feel in the first place. She was completely happy that she started feeling – something – and at the same time she could die of embarrassment when they were caught in the act.

"They won't." Danny said, very sure of what he was saying. "They can't, in two months I will be 18 years old, they can't treat me as a little boy anymore and the same goes for you, you'll be an adult in six months, they can't control us."

"I'm still scared." She said quietly. He kissed her long and lovingly to soothe her.

"It will be okay." He wrapped his arms around her and opened the door, leading them to the lion's den.

Sam's parents were sitting on the sofa, Mrs. Manson was crying helplessly as her husband barely blinked. Sam and Danny sat down in front of them, holding hands, not knowing that the small affection act was like a slap to her parents.

They sat in an uncomfortable silence for what seemed ten minutes before Sam's father decided to speak.

"When I gave you permission to date, I never expected such improper behavior inside my house." He said, his eyes were shooting daggers at Danny, who didn't turn his eyes away from him for a second. "What you were doing is not supposed to happen before marriage." When he said that, Sam stood up, indignantly, which her arms crossed over her chest, at the time she did that, Danny knew it was a wrong move.

"You and your traditionalist ideas!" She said a bit too loud to still be over the respect line she was supposed to keep with her parents. Mr. Manson was fuming. "I'm not going to get married, not with Danny, not with that Kyle Miles from two years ago! I want to be with Danny, but that doesn't mean I'll get married!" Danny felt a little stab in his heart. She was never going to marry him and she was never going to be the mother of his child.

"You lower your voice, young lady, how dare you speak such atrocity?" Mrs. Manson said, wiping her eyes in a tissue.

"Danny and I slept together lots of times already. Tonight wasn't the first and it won't be the last." She said, breaking down in tears. "I don't need a stupid ring to sleep with him!" Then she did something that completely took Danny off his seat. She turned around and showed them her tattoo.

They gasped loudly and Mrs. Manson broke down in tears once more.

"I'm sorry I'm not the perfect daughter, but… I'd like if you accepted me like I am… that's why I'm with Danny, he accepted me, unlike you guys, who seem to want to out me in pink dresses and marriage traditions. This is the 21st century! You don't have to bear each other just because you're married; you're not a failure if you don't have a child! I wasn't cut out to be married with children as you two; I don't want to live the American dream! I want to live my own dream!"

Danny had taken enough; he stood up and wrapped his arms around her, trying to calm her down. She couldn't talk anymore; she completely lost herself in sobs.

"I'm sorry…" He said to her stunned parents. "We'll just… go."

"No, you're leaving his house young man, but she's staying." Mr. Manson said.

"No, she's coming with me. She's not in condition to hear anymore and you'd be doing her a great favor if you let her come with me tonight. You can call my parents and make sure we won't behave inappropriately." Danny said, feeling very angry towards her parents and at her for the things she said.

He picked Sam up and when they were out of her parent's sights she turned ghost and flew towards his house, ending that eventful night with many tears and not sharing a single word with her. He was beyond disappointed; it was like he had just opened his eyes and realized that Sam would never give him what he wanted.

One Month to Sam's departure. 

Knock. Knock.

Danny woke up in his bed with a very naked Sam by his side. He smiled satisfied and kissed her on the forehead gently so he wouldn't wake her up.

Knock. Knock.

He groaned when he realized that the reason he was up so early was because someone had been knocking on his apartment's door for the past ten minutes. He threw the covers off him and put on his sweatpants, looking decent enough to answer the door.

To his surprise, outside was a man he thought he was never going to see again, Jude was looking very relieved to see that he had finally answered the door.

"Oh, finally somebody answered!" He said a little frustratedto be knocking for so long. "For a second I thought you had moved somewhere else!" He walked past a very confused Danny into the living room. Jude stopped in the middle of the room, then put his hands on his hips and turned around. "Sam's here with you, right?"

"Hm…" Danny scratched his hair in confusion. That man was Sam's university friend, right? The Jude guy who had been kissing her even though he claimed to be gay. "She's asleep in my room…" Danny made sure to stress the 'my room' part.

"I really have to talk to her, it's very important." Jude said. Danny noticed that he was holding a small black book with a skull in the front. Danny didn't want to wake her up so early, but he was sure that whatever made Jude leave New York for the second time in two months to go meet Sam in Amity Park, must be something quite serious.

But Danny didn't have to wake Sam up, she walked groggily into the living room a few seconds later, wearing an over sized shirt (Danny's, of course) still sleepy, almost as if she was sleepwalking.

"Jude?" She rubbed her eyes, still confused from sleep. Danny cracked up in a smile. She looked like a little girl. She was adorable. "What are you doing here?" She smiled at him and gave him a hug. "How do you know where to find me?"

"Your friend Tucker helped me." Jude smiled.

"Tucker!" Danny echoed incredulously.

"It's very urgent, Sam, we have to talk." Jude said, completely ignoring Danny. "Get dressed and let's have coffee somewhere."

"Okay, fine." Sam replied, very confused. "I'll be right back. Danny, be a dear and make him feel welcome." She said as she disappeared inside the room again.

"What's so important?" Danny asked, still acting all manly, as if he had to reassure himself in front of Jude.

"It's about our diplomas, nothing you'd be interested, my dear." Jude said, smiling at him. "And you should do something about that chest hair, that's a huge turn off."

"It was never a problem." Danny defended himself, blushing. "Sam never said anything."

"It doesn't mean she likes it." Jude lowered his voice to complete "Believe me, we've talked a lot in Yale, she doesn't like chest hair, she tolerates it."

Danny couldn't believe his ears. He completely brushed the current subject away and decided that he should warn Jude of what he was doing to Sam, to cure her from her addictions.

"Listen, since you two are going to have a coffee or whatever," He began. "You better take care of her. I'm helping her to stop taking pills and drinking. Don't allow her to drink a single drop of alcohol, don't give her more ecstasy tablets, no weed, no to anything that may do her harm, and in this include her depression pills."

"You made her stop taking the pills!" Jude's eyes widened. "Do you realize she's in danger of committing suicide?" They talked in very low voices so Sam wouldn't hear them.

"She's not." Danny said carefully "I've talked to her about it and she doesn't remember trying to kill herself, she just remembers waking up in the hospital after blacking out for taking aspirins. It could have been an accident and she's taking anti-depressive for years now when her mind is completely fine."

"I saw her take a whole bottle of aspirins with a liter of vodka." Jude said, dangerously, "She wasn't fine back there and I'm not allowing you to change her prescriptions just because you think she's fine!"

"She didn't take anything for two weeks now…" Danny smiled smartly "Tell me if you notice anything different about her when you talk." He stopped talking when he heard Sam's high heel shoe's noise approaching the living room. "You've been warned." Danny threatened, and then he turned around to greet Sam, who was looking lovely in a summer dress.

She walked to Danny and softly kissed his lips, saying goodbye and turning to Jude, who took her by the hand and lead her out of the apartment as quickly as possible. He pulled her into the nearest and emptiest coffee shop he found.

"I told Danny we're going to talk about our diplomas, just in case he asks." Jude said, Sam noticed how distressed he was, he was even shaking.

"What happened, Jude?" She asked quietly, sitting down by a table in a dark corner where nobody would overhear them. The waiter quickly asked them they wanted and Sam wanted she wanted the same old Cappuccino and Jude asked a cup of tea. Jude didn't talk until their orders arrived and the waiter left them alone. "You're freaking me out."

"YOU freaked me out." Jude said, placing on the table the black book Danny had seen inside his apartment. Sam paled instantly.

"I… I was looking for that." She managed to choke out. "You must've packed it by accident."

"Indeed, and when I saw that it was your diary I was going to send it out by mail, but when I let it fall on the floor it opened and from the pages fell all these disturbing prescriptions." Jude placed all the descriptions on the table, too. "And then I decided that I should read whatever it was about and you have no idea how shocked I was."

"Jude… I'm sorry…" Sam tried to say, but her face contorted with pain and her tears started pooling from her eyes.

"Sam, I thought I was your best friend." Jude said, grasping her hand tightly in his.

"You are. I've never talked to someone as much as I talked to you." She cried. "I didn't want anyone to know."

"… does Danny know?"

"Of course not. I'd never tell him."

"He has the right to know." Jude insisted.

"It's over now." She said quickly. "There's no reason to trouble him with a 'what if'."

"We were already friends there, Sammy…" Jude rested his forehead in his palms. "You should have told me."

"There was nothing you could do." Sam insisted, calming down. Jude sighed. He had never seen anyone as strong as Sam.

"I can't believe you hid this miscarriage from everyone."

**... to keep myself alive a little longer... I'm going to hide for a while.**


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter Eight**_

Two Months after college classes started.

Sam was sitting in the middle of the classroom, looking straight at the teacher who wouldn't stop talking about how important Aristotle was to the concepts Plato would develop about the Ideal World much later.

She closed her eyes, feeling a hard pain in her stomach. She was in agony. She had eaten something the day before that completely destroyed her stomach. She cursed herself for being a disaster in the kitchen (Danny had joked about it many times). She trembled as if she had a high fever, but at the same time, she felt her sweat drip over her eyes.

She hated feeling sweaty and she hated that stupid dish she had cooked the night before. Since she had already read about the subject the teacher was talking about, she shot up her hand in the air and asked to be excused. The teacher looked at her, hating being interrupted, but when she saw that Sam looked deadly pale, she immediately let her go.

Once she was in the hall, she had to hold the wall support herself up. She wondered what was going on with her, but the pain was so intense that she could barely hear her own thoughts. When she finally reached the bathroom she was glad to find it empty.

Her books were dropped on the floor and she run towards the toilet, closing the door behind her. She kneeled on the floor, feeling like she was going to puke her guts out. A much stronger wave of pain shot through her, like she had been stabbed a little below her stomach, making her scream.

When she looked down she found herself sitting in a puddle of her own blood. 'I'm hemorrhaging!' She screamed mentally, frightened. She looked up, trying to unlock the door she had closed, but she found no strength to raise her arms. Instead, she was slowly falling into an ocean of numbness. The pain was slowly dying and her vision was becoming a blur.

She was glad she was going to pass out.

When Sam opened her eyes she saw herself in a white hospital room. She was just confused. The room was empty, she looked around and there wasn't a single person there, not a friend, not a doctor. Her throat hurt and her arms were stitched with IVs.

If she wasn't used being by herself, she'd be in panic at the moment. She wanted to know what was wrong with her. She looked up and saw a small red button that she should press in case she needed a nurse, but her arms wouldn't reach it because of the tubes.

As if hearing her thoughts, a doctor opened the door and walked into the room, stopping for a second, surprised to see her awake. He smiled warmly at her and picked a file with the descriptions of her situation. He didn't say a word for a long time.

Sam turned her head to the window. It was dark outside. She remembered she had collapsed after the first class.

"Are you in pain? Do you want more pain-killers?" She turned her head to see the doctor leaning over her gently.

"I'm not in pain." She answered. "What happened?" She asked quietly.

"Well…" He sighed and sat down in a chair next to her. "What do you remember?"

"I was bleeding and felt like I was passing out." She said, slowly, recalling the events as she spoke.

"That's true. You passed out in the bathroom in the campus and when the ambulance got you here you were in a very bad shape, in superficial shock because of the blood loss."

"Did you call my parents?" Sam asked; her voice barely over a whisper. She didn't want her parents to know about it. It was humiliating. The first two months she spent alone she ended in a hospital because she could barely cook.

"No, we were going to in case you got worse, but we're in a delicate situation here." Sam looked up to him, wondering what he was talking about. "Did you know you were pregnant?"

Pregnant? Her eyes widened and her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. She also didn't miss the word 'were', which meant she had lost the baby. Her brain was numb; she didn't feel like crying or calling Danny to tell him. She had been so stupid. Since they had stopped having sex for more than six months (they had to study to pass in a good college and he had traveled the whole summer with his family) she had stopped to take her birth control pills.

When Danny had visited her by surprise in her apartment, she had completely forgotten to take a morning after pill, she as so sad that they had broken up that she hadn't even imagined the risk of a pregnancy. They had their lives to take care of and they couldn't stay together, much less take care of a child that was conceived because they hadn't been careful.

At that moment she felt like a monster because in a way, she was glad she lost that baby.

Two Weeks before Sam's Departure

Jude and Sam were sitting in front of each other quietly inside a coffee shop. Jude still thought that Sam should tell Danny about everything. Informally, it was a way to push them together and there wasn't anything Jude wanted more than to see Sam happy. She'd never allow her heart to speak louder than her mind, so Jude thought that her future with Danny depended just on him. If he knew he could've had a baby with her, he'd surely never let her go.

But there was still something Jude wasn't telling Sam. He had broken up with his boyfriend because he couldn't stop thinking about her.

"Did anybody tell you why you lost the baby?" Jude asked.

"Yes…" She whispered. "Since I didn't know I was pregnant I wasn't very careful with lots of things and… well… it just happened." She said.

"Let me guess the causes." Jude said, sarcastically "Alcohol and drugs."

"Don't talk to me like that." Sam replied, feeling like she had been insulted. "You never cared about what I took."

"Of course I did!" Jude replied. "And I insist, you must tell Danny."

"I won't let him grief over an unborn child." Sam said darkly. "I know what the feeling is like and I'm not going to let him suffer like that."

"So you admit you thought about the child." Jude leaned back against the chair. He offered her a small and reassuring smile. "You thought what it felt like to hold that baby, didn't you?"

"I thought about holding him… I thought about buying baby clothes. I thought about getting married to Danny and giving up my career to raise our child." She admitted. "But then I realized I was mourning over something I never wanted, so I just… stopped thinking."

Jude saw as her eyes filled up with tears and her face contorted with pain. He reached to her and held her hand to comfort her. She was thinking of herself as a monster. She had hated herself all those years. Suddenly, Jude realized that her relationship with Danny had been much more serious than he had ever given credit for.

Whenever he saw her crying, she was crying for Danny and their baby. The angle Jude had been seeing her all that time was completely different now. She wasn't a love sick teen who couldn't get over her boyfriend; she was a mother who had lost her child.

"Never…" She said in a low voice, almost scaring Jude out of his skin. "Never talk about it again."

"Ok. I promise I won't mention it anymore." Jude agreed.

"Thank you." Sam said quietly, letting go of his hand to take her cup and sip her cooling drink.

Jude was still restless. He wanted to make sure she was going to stay with Danny. Sam had become the most special girl in the whole world to him. He hated to admit it, but he had loved kissing her lips.

"I've got another thing to tell you." Jude said quietly, giving her a small naughty smile, making her lighten up completely.

"What is it?" She asked, curiosity getting the best out of her.

"I think I am a bi now."

Sam's eyes shot open in surprise and she smiled widely. She gave out a little cry of surprise and lifted her hands to her mouth.

"Oh my gosh! I can't believe it!" She said finally. "… and you had said you'd never cross to the dark side." She joked. "Now I've completely lost my chances with you." She continued on the jokes. "Who is the lucky girl?"

"Sam…" He took a deep breathe. "I think I'm attracted to you."

Sam's smile faded, she bit her lip and looked down.

"That was unexpected." She said after several minutes.

"I know and… I'm sorry." He said quietly. "I want you to be with Danny after all."

"Oh Jude, don't be so generous." She said, looking at him as if she was teaching a little boy he had been ridiculous. "You know Danny and I aren't going to work and you also know you're like a brother to me. You're the perfect man…" She said, smiling gently at him. "…and I'm such a wreck. I don't deserve you."

"I knew I'd hear it." He said, taking his wallet and paying for their breakfast. "Well, at least I tried." He smiled, offering her a hand to help her stand. "I was wondering if we could spend the day together."

"Sure. Let's just go back to Danny's apartment so I can hide this diary somewhere." Sam said, not letting go of his hand.

The next seconds happened like it was part of a dream. Jude tightened his grip on her hand and she walked into the street seeing a red Ferrari passing by.

She knew that car.

It was Kyle's car.

Four Years and a Half Before 

Sam couldn't sleep the night before. When she was changing in her pajamas in her closet, she saw the small box she kept Kyle's letters and postcards. Danny knew about the box and even though he was a little jealous every time a new letter came, he didn't tell a single word about it.

It had been months since she had last received letter so she grabbed the box, went to her bed and started reading everything he had written to her again.

She was surprised that he had actually made it to an opera in less than six months he had been studying erudite music. She was very proud of him.

She stayed up and read about his adventures the whole night, when she noticed the time, she had one hour before she had to wake up. There was something she learned about being up until late, if she had to choose between sleeping an hour and not sleeping at all, it was better not to sleep.

So she stood up, took a shower, got dressed and went down to the kitchen to have breakfast. She was alone in her house once again; her parents were in Russia this time. So she poured herself some coffee and grabbed a toast before going up to her room to place all the letters carefully inside the box.

At that time, Danny had arrived in her house. He noticed on the door and waited for her parents to answer (He didn't know they were away because it had been more than three days they hadn't talked to each other since they were busy studying for the tests);

When she didn't answer, he knocked again, this time calling her. He heard the sound of someone running through the house so he waited patiently. Then, he heard a loud thud and a small cry of pain. He tried to open the door himself, but found it locked.

"Sam! Are you okay?" He called through the door, anxiously. He wanted to go ghost and fly inside her house, but what if her parents were there and saw him? He still got no answer, so he decided that if he had to blow his cover, it was for a good cause. So he went ghost and flew through the door.

He found her lying on the floor in the edge of the staircase; her ankle was twisted in a weird angle. He ran to her desperately. She was looking at the ceiling, her breathe completely knocked out of her, as if she was in shock.

"Hang in there, Sammy." Danny said, picking her up in his arms. "I'm taking you to a hospital."

Tears were falling freely from her eyes and she still couldn't talk, still completely out of breath. Danny rushed to the nearest hospital finding she was going from very pale to extremely blue.

Before he entered the hospital he changed to his human form, still finding very easily to carry her even without his ghost powers.

"Somebody help me! She fell down the stairs!" He shouted into the hospital, successfully making everyone look at them.

Several hours later, Sam sat on Danny's bed with her arms crossed over her chest, sulking. He convinced his parents that she couldn't be left alone so they agreed it was okay for her to stay until her parents were back.

"Danny, you have to study." Sam said, watching him as he gently caressed her bruised arms.

"At the moment, I don't care." He said, reaching up and holding her close to him. The hug lasted a few seconds before he pulled back and reached to her broken ankle. "Do you think the plaster is already dry?" He checked it. "I want to draw on it."

"Danny!" She slapped him playfully. "You go get a book and study or else you'll never get in college."

"I can study tomorrow." He said, reaching for a pen and placing her immobilized foot on his legs so he could draw on it. "Or after… I don't care. I'll take care of you."

"This is really sweet." Sam said. "But unnecessary. Go study now!"

"Sam's right, sweetheart." Maddie Fenton said as she walked through the door with two plates of soup. "The only thing you two can do right now is to study; besides, you can help her whenever she needs to stand." Then, Maddie turned to Sam "And you, dear, I've just called your parents and they're not coming back until next week so you're welcome to stay here."

"Thanks, Mrs. Fenton." Sam smiled, taking the bowls from Danny's mother.

"So, I'm taking care of you for the next week." Danny announced. A week without studying won't influence my grades that much anyway."

Maddie frowned, but she didn't say anything. She just went to the door and closed it behind her after she left.

"I can't believe your parents don't say anything about us sharing a room." Sam said quietly, being careful to nobody overhear them.

"I think they got used to it when Jazz started bringing her boyfriend over." Danny laughed. "The best part is they won't walk in before knocking so we won't get caught again."

"You HAD to remember me." She said in frustration, leaning on his pillow. The day her parents caught them together was the most embarrassing day of her life.

He crawled over her, covering her body with his and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. Nothing desperate or hungry like it used to be, just… gentle.

"I'm going to fill the bathtub for you. It'll be easier than a shower, right?" He asked, already halfway to the bathroom.

"I believe so." She said quietly, looking at him as he disappeared inside the bathroom he had connected with his bedroom. For a second, she wondered where their passion had gone to.

She waited patiently until he returned to the room. He sat down next to her, while listening to the noise of water running. He smiled and rested his hand on her thigh comfortably. She smiled at him and didn't say anything. It looked like an old couple routine to her.

"So…" he said quietly, thinking of something to say. "…would you like me to turn on the radio?"

"No… I like it silent when I'm with you." She answered.

At that moment she noticed another thing that she wished he didn't see. The conversation between them had run dry. They didn't have much to talk anymore. They knew everything about each other.

"Well, the bath is ready, come on." He said, playfully, placing one arm around her back and another behind her knees. He took her to the bathroom and helped her stand in one leg. "Come on, don't fall off." He joked, helping her unbutton her shirt.

Sam noticed that there wasn't a single hint that he was doing it so he could sleep with her. He undressed her like she was a little child that needed help bathing. He unzipped her skirt and didn't even look down to check her out. There wasn't a single grope. He took off her bra and panties and picked her put again, laying her carefully into the tub with her immobilized foot hanging outside.

"Now, I'll go prepare the bed, when you're ready you call me, okay?" He didn't wait for her to answer; he just stood up, gave her a small peck on the forehead and left the bathroom.

Sam hadn't noticed that they were so used to each other like that. According to her research about Love, that was the point they had started to fall apart.

It's impossible to love someone with the same passion for so many years. Imagine if they were having sex every five minutes, they'd never make it to the front door. That was the natural curse of things and the next step was very disappointing.

When she realized that she had to hold back a sob.

Two Weeks before Sam's Departure

Sam watched as the red Ferrari turned the corner to her old house and cracked up in a smile. She grabbed Jude's hand and dragged him with her, running as fast as they could.

"Wait up, Sam!" He called, a little tired from running.

"Jude!" She began, never stopped running. "That was Kyle's car! Kyle's back!"

"Kyle? That guy who you were supposed to marry?" Jude asked incredulously.

He didn't get an answer from her, she just continued running until she spotted her house and the red Ferrari parked in front of it.

The car's door opened and a handsome boy stepped on the street, he was about to knock on the door when he saw two people running towards him. He took off his sunglasses and smiled widely when he realized that the grown up girl running to him was his lovely Sam Manson.

He opened his arms and she embraced him tightly.

"I thought I was never going to see you again!" She squeaked, happily.

"Well, the classes are over and I could only think of coming here to say hello." He said, kissing her head gently. "Thank you, Sam, without you I wouldn't have made it." Kyle said, slowly breaking their embrace and set her on her feet again.

Sam smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. She noticed something about Kyle. There was something in his body language that was completely different from the last time they were together.

He had grown a lot. He had a tan and his eyes looked even greener. He was wearing a fine pair of jeans and an unbuttoned polo shirt.

She suddenly remembered Jude behind her; she turned around and held his hand, bringing him closer to Kyle.

"Kyle, this is Jude, my best friend in the whole world." She said, then she turned to Jude. "Jude, this is Kyle, the best opera singer you'll ever meet."

"I've heard a lot about you." Jude said, shaking hands with Kyle.

"Same here." Kyle answered warmly.

As both tall boys shook their hands, Sam remained between them, looking ridiculously small. She looked to Kyle who hadn't broken eye contact with Jude.

She turned her head and saw Jude smiling at Kyle.

Then she looked down at their joined hands… and she grinned.

**So... I wasn't going to update before my trip to another state. I'm spending two weeks away from my comp shooting a movie. Since I was so nice and updated before I left, I expect lots of your lovely reviews thanking me for not being cruel and leaving you guys in the dark for more two weeks. C'mon you know you want to review. I'll give you a cookie.**

**See ya in two weeks.**


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter Nine**_

Two Weeks Before Sam's Departure

Danny arrived late in his apartment that night. He was in a cranny mood the whole day, every time he looked around he had a feeling that Jude and Sam were somewhere near him, joking, laughing and making out. What did Sam see in that guy anyway? Danny had this small suspicious that Jude was faking to be gay just to be around her. He grimaced when he remembered their kissing and groping several weeks before in his College party.

He sat down on the sofa and reluctantly picked a book about rockets to read. Sam hadn't returned from her 'breakfast' with Jude and it was past dinner time. He sighed and picked up his glasses and started reading. Two minutes later, the door opened and Sam walked inside, wearing a huge grin. Danny looked up to see her over his glasses, but he didn't smile.

"Had fun?" He asked.

"Lots." She said, with a happy sigh. She looked over to see and cocked her head to the side "Are you wearing glasses... and READING?" She said playfully, but still slightly shocked.

"Very funny, Sam," he replied, returning to his book.

"Now, why are you acting like this?" She asked, walking close to him, slowly, swinging her hips a little more than necessary. Danny pretended to not see, but he also couldn't help but gulp nervously. He wanted to keep his attitude, but that damn girl was going to make him smile.

She turned on the radio that was playing one of her favorite jazz songs and continued in his direction. She sat on his lap, taking his book off his hands and softly placing her hands on his chest, admiring his face.

"I like you wearing glasses. It's cute. You look almost a like serious person." She said, tapping his nose with her index finger.

"Are you saying that I'm not serious?" He grinned, finally, giving up on his cranny mood, taking off his glasses and wrapping his arms loosely around her. "So… where's Jude?" To his surprise she grinned again, she almost looked like she was sparkling.

"Today was surreal." She said, cuddling comfortably against his chest, like a little girl. "Jude came and… we talked about our diplomas." She said, trying not to remember the reason why they had really talked. "And then I saw a red Ferrari passing by…" Her voice trailed off, so Danny could complete the information by himself and when he did his eyes widened in realization. "Yeah, Kyle is in town."

"But… he was in Europe!" Danny said, confused. Now both boys who had a crush on HIS girlfriend were in town and she was delighted to see them. Was she his girlfriend? They never talked about it…

"Not anymore." She smiled. "He invited the three of us to dinner tomorrow night." She said.

"Three?" Danny raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, Jude, too." She said, playing with his tie, loosening it while she looked deep into his eyes.

Danny didn't say anything, he just stared back at her while she entertained herself with his tie and shirt buttons. She leaned even more closer (if that was possible) and placed a soft kiss on his lips, her arms circled around his neck and pressed her hips against his, almost making him moan in the process.

"I don't like this." He managed to say, breaking their kiss and not moving his hands to touch her. She sat back, looking at him in confusion, but never letting down her playful tone.

"You don't like what?" She grinned. "It's not my fault you turned me into a nymphomaniac! You gotta deal with the responsibility."

Normally, he'd be completely speechless by that answer and he'd grab her and have his way with her right there and then, but at that moment he was so blind by jealousy that he didn't even flinch when he heard her. He wondered what she was doing with the two boys she liked the most right after him and Tucker that made her come home and jump on him like that.

"Danny… talk to me. What happened?" She whispered quietly, the mood was completely gone and she looked down at him worried.

"Where were you?" He answered with another question. He didn't smile or offer any kindness to make it easier for her to answer.

"With Jude and Kyle." She answered simply. He closed his eyes, feeling like his heart was being crushed, and then he pushed her off him and stood up. "What's wrong with you!" She yelled, getting angrier as he left her in the dark like that.

"I don't want you alone with them." He said simply.

"What!" Now, that made her snap. She couldn't believe he was getting jealous of her all over again. This time he had no claim in her to be even talking to her like that. Danny noticed that she was livid by his behavior and he also knew that he was wrong to ask that of her.

"What do you like about them?" He asked, a little more quietly. "Are they… sweeter?

"I can't believe you're asking me that!" She stood up, grabbed the purse she had thrown in the sofa not even ten minutes ago and made her way to the door. "You're a jerk sometimes Danny. Call me when you've cooled down."

"Sam, wait!" He said, suddenly desperate to keep her inside that apartment. He run to her and closed the door she had barely opened.

"Wait? Why? So you can insult me and my friends?" She dared, tilting her head up defiantly at him. Danny shivered. He loved when she was dominated by that fire that made her face everything.

"I can't help it, okay?" He said, almost helplessly. He touched her for the first time since she entered the room, noticing how cold she was. He hadn't noticed before, but she was a little wet from raindrops. "I hate to feel it!"

"Feel what?" She asked simply, loosing her anger and giving in into kindness; Danny let go of her and sat down on the sofa, holding his head on his hands.

"This jealously." He mumbled. "I can't control you, I can't make sure you'll be with me all the time and… damn, I hate this."

"Hate what?" She whispered, softly, kneeling down in front of him.

"I hate them." He said finally. "I hate when you go out with Jude and now Kyle because you're so damn happy when you're with them. I hate that they will eventually take you away from me." He said in one breath. "… and I mostly hate the fact that you would choose a career over me. I hate that you're going to L.A. in two weeks and I'll never see you again!"

"Danny, we've talked about this." Sam said, sighing.

"I hate that I can't control you." He continued. "I hate that you are so damn independent! I want you here; I want to protect you from everything."

"I'm not your lapdog Danny, I have my own life to take care of right now and if the situation was reversed you wouldn't choose me over your dream of being an astronaut." She answered, trying to make it sound simple and rational, while she knew that each word was like a stab. He would never choose her over his career, so why should she?

Danny didn't answer her. He would give up his dream to be with her, of course he would. She just needed to ask and he would give everything for her.

"Are you okay now?" She asked quietly.

"I guess." He muttered, lying back on the sofa, closing his eyes.

"Okay… so… do you want to come to the dinner tomorrow or should I cancel?" She asked, sitting down next to him.

"Don't cancel. I'll go and be nice the whole night, I promise." He said. "I know you like them so I'll try to like them, too."

Sam hugged him and smiled. She knew it was hard for him to accept that she had other people in her life. He was so used to the idea of just her and Tucker that another person would be an intruder, no matter how nice they were.

"I promise you won't regret it. Tomorrow you'll see that your jealously has no meaning, you'll see." She kissed him lightly and stood up, turning around and going towards their room.

"Where are you going?" He asked, a little disappointed that he had broken the mood before.

"I'll take a shower and warm up. I was caught in the rain on my way here." She called from inside the bathroom.

"Can I join you?" He finally said, waiting for an answer that he thought it took forever to come.

"I thought you'd never ask."

Some hours later Sam cried out and Danny collapsed on top of her, she held him close feeling alive and complete, kissing him wherever she could reach, making him chuckle from her content silliness. He was so happy to be in her arms like that and she her smile was so wide that he couldn't help himself but ask her something that he had never dared to ask before.

"Do you love me?"

Sam opened her eyes and looked at him, his eyes were so blue and they looked so deep that she felt he was scanning her soul for a truthful answer. Her smile failed a little and Danny already knew the answer. He shook his head with a sad smile and laid his cheek on her chest, hoping that sleep would claim him soon.

"I wish I knew how…" He heard her whisper quietly before falling into a deep dreamless sleep. She brushed his hair away from his eyes as she stared at the ceiling. "… but being with you is what makes me happy."

Four Years an a Half Before.

Still with a broken ankle, Sam sat on art class, painting a forest with every possible shade of green she managed to get from mixing the primary colors. She had to admit Art class was very relaxing. The bell rang and the teacher kindly offered to clean her brushes since she couldn't stand properly.

Sam put all her books and ink inside her bag and put her painting in a drawer so it would dry until the next class. She sat down patiently as the class emptied and just her and the teacher were left.

The door opened and the teacher smiled.

"You can come in, Mr. Fenton." She said, letting Danny into the classroom.

"Thanks, Mrs. Adeline." Then he turned to see Sam, sitting there with a small smile. "Hey, Sam, ready to be carried home?'" he smiled.

"I could use clutches you know." She said, letting herself be picked up in bridal style and carried comfortably out of the door. "When my ankle heals your back will be ruined." She said.

"Dude…" Tucked joined them a few seconds later, holding his head. "That test will kill somebody one of these days." Then he looked at Sam who he hadn't seen the whole day "Hello queen Samantha, can I carry your highness next?"

"Don't call me Samantha!" She yelled.

"If you knew how much she weights you wouldn't even joke like that." Danny said.

"What!"

Tucker was rolling on the floor laughing at Sam's indignant face. It had been a while since he and Danny had paired up to tease her, for a second he had missed that.

"… you two won't spare even a wounded friend." She replied, teasing them by pretending to mind.

"Do you know you're cute when you're teasing us?" Danny said.

"Oh please, guys, don't start it, I don't want to get sick right now." Tucker complained.

"Funny, I never complained when you sucked Valerie's tonsils in front of us." Sam replied.

"You should be used by now, Tuck." Danny laughed. "Hey, do you want to come over and play video game? I'm tired of being beaten by Sam alone."

"If there's two for me to crush it will be even funnier." Sam said to herself.

"Only if you promise me that I won't witness any display of affection while I'm with you, that's quite disturbing." Tucker said, pretending to check his PDA just to not see the funny faces both Danny and Sam had given him.

"Oh fine, it has been a while since we hang out anyway." Sam said. "I think we owe each other this."

"Okay, I agree." Danny smiled and the three of them headed to his house.

Later that night, when Tucker had gotten tired to get his butt kicked by Sam and left muttering something about 'he had gone easy because she was a girl', Danny moved himself to his mattress on the floor, after helping Sam to his bed.

"Come here." Sam said, turning over in the dark, watching as he restlessly tried to find himself a comfortable position to sleep.

"Sam, my parents are in the next room." He pointed out.

"I was just going to give you a backrub you pervert." She giggled.

He laughed quietly and moved to her side, laying down facing the pillow while she clumsily moved to sit on his butt. She had took pity on him, after all she carried her around the whole day pretending she didn't weight much, but she knew it wasn't good for his back.

He moaned softly when she started untangling the knots on his back and felt himself relax under her skilful fingers. He loved her fingers, he loved to feel her legs straddling him, and he loved her weight. She moved lower and he yawned, making her giggle girlishly, completely unlike herself.

His hands found her knees and he mercilessly caressed her while she continued to work on his back, pretending he wasn't killing her with his touch. When she finished the massage, she leaned down on top of him and placed a sweet kiss in his cheek, then his neck and his shoulder.

Danny breathed sharply and turned around to take her in his arms and kiss her properly. She lay comfortably resting her back on his chest, ready to fall asleep when she felt him sweeping her hair away before placing a hot kiss on her neck, making her bit her lip to control a moan. His arms, which previously were encircled around her waist, traveled south, caressing her thighs and smoothing her nightshirt up.

"You said your parents are in the next room." She protested quietly, lost in the sensations he was giving her.

"We can be quiet, can't we?"

"I surely can, but, can you?" She asked quietly, making Danny frown, remembering her small 'problem'. She still hadn't felt everything he had in their love-making, even though now he knew how to drain a moan or two from her she still remained oblivious to the whole sensation he always had.

"I can try." He grinned and the conversation was completely lost after that, because he decided to silence her with a kiss.

They didn't know that that was their last time together before their breakup. The next day was announced the start of the tests, then it came the college entrance tests and the finals. If they had the chance to see each other, it was on the school's library, with piles of books between them.

Two Weeks Before Sam's Departure. 

Danny held Sam's hand firmly on his as he walked inside the restaurant; Kyle and Jude were already there, to Danny's displeasure. Sam had told him they were sleeping in the same hotel so they probably had gotten more acquainted in each passing hour.

Sam hugged them both before sitting down, Danny shook hands with the other males and sat down next to her, glimpsing at her from times to times to check if her blouse was decent enough, if her crossed legs wasn't accidentally touching anybody else.

He noticed (with pride) that she was wearing the necklace he had given her long ago, written 'My Wild Rose' in the heart-shaped pendant that showed to the world that she was taken. He really felt like he had to kiss her for wearing that tonight. It was like she was silently comforting him, reassuring that she was his and only his.

"Now, Kyle, tell us about that opera you will be on." Sam said, grinning from ear-to-ear. Danny looked to Jude, who was staring at Sam in some kind of sad and compassionate way, that wasn't a longing look, it was too sad…

"Well, right." Kyle blushed, he had never been that close to Danny before and that boy's glare was making him quite nervous. "I'm not sure you guys are interested about opera…"

"Oh we are, dear." Jude said, placing his hand on Kyle's arm, reassuring him it was all right to speak. Danny raised an eyebrow when he saw the gesture. If Jude touched him like that, he'd jump a couple of feet in fright. He glimpsed at Sam again and saw her smile widen when she too saw the gesture.

"Okay, so… next weekend it will premiere on Broadway the opera Cavalleria Rusticana, by Pietro Mascagni. I'll play Turiddu a character that lives in the country side…"

"Who is a tenor, by the way." Sam inserted.

"Yeah." Kyle blushed. He still couldn't believe he had such powerful voice. "This is a story in one act, it happens in Sicily, south Italy, in Easter day. Turiddu sings this song to Lola, his promised wife, who couldn't wait until he returned from war and married Alfio. At this time there's a party for the holiday and there's a girl Santuzza who is Turiddu's lover who believes he isn't being fateful to her. She tells Tiruddu's mother that her son keeps seeing Lola even though she's married because they swore loyalty to one another… Tiruddu arrives with Lola and they enter the church for the Sunday festivities, giving Santuzza a cold shoulder. When they exit the church, Alfie challenges him for a knife duel; Tiruddu accepts and say goodbye to his mother asking her to take care of Santuzza who he has wronged. He dies and the opera ends quite abruptly."

"The story is a little melodramatic, but the songs are beautiful." Sam said, sipping in her red wine. "The Intermezzo Sinfonico, an instrumental piece that's played a little before the ending is the most beautiful pieces I've ever heard."

"Oh yeah." Jude said, grimacing a little and pretending to be bored. "You must see her in college, she had the CD to this opera and every time this Intermezzo-thing played she'd dissolve herself into tears."

Danny was glad to find that Jude seemed to understand as much as he did about operas. He wasn't feeling so left out anymore.

"Are you going to see the opera?" Kyle asked everybody, but looking mostly to Sam.

"Of course I will!" She said.

"Well, then… here." He took three tickets in the best place of the theater. "It will be an honor to see you guys there."

"Wasn't that opera originally sung by Caruso?" Jude asked, reading the ticket.

Once again, Danny felt like he was left in the dark. Who the hell was Caruso? Why was that stupid opera so important to them? Okay, now he was supposed to go to Broadway watch an Opera he didn't care about, but as much as he wanted to stand up and leave he felt he owned this to Sam.

"Ohh, Danny I'm sure you know Sam's dirty secret about Caruso." Jude smirked, making Sam go completely red.

"Jude, don't!"

"She's sooooo romantic, you know." Jude continued, laughing at Sam's distress. Danny laughed, too, looking down at his embarrassed girl. She looked lovely when she was like that. "A softie." Jude chuckled. "I found a book once, she was reading a ROMANCE novel (not very gothic, if you ask me.) and actually crying whenever she heard the song 'Caruso'."

"You cry hearing Caruso!" Kyle started laughing as well, but Danny didn't catch the joke. Kyle noticed this and explained. "It's a song by Lucio Dalla, he's a great Italian singer. He wrote the song for Caruso telling the story of the tenor's last days of life when he was an old man who loved a young woman. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but he was dying he couldn't be with her so he started singing his feelings at the balcony towards the sea and it's said the song was so beautiful that all ships came to the shore to hear it."

"You cry hearing that?" Danny looked at Sam, completely amused. Now, that was news to him.

"I used to." She said, embarrassedly, sitting back on her chair and hiding her face in the wine glass.

"Used to? Ha! I doubt that, if you hear it right now, you're going to cry, I know you THAT well." Jude said, still laughing.

"Te voglio bene assai  
ma tanto tanto bene sai  
e' una catena ormai  
che scioglie il sangue dint' e' vene sai..."

Kyle sang the chorus and Sam covered her ears like a child.

"Stop! Stop!" She said, Danny gently pushed her hands away and tilted her chin up with his index finger, placing a sweet kiss on her lips (Kyle chocked on the lyrics and Jude mocked an 'awww…'). She stopped moving at that and sat down straight, looking redder than a tomato at her friends.

"What does that mean anyway?" Danny looked back to Kyle, waiting for a translation.

"Well, just 'I love you very much you know, it's a chain that heats the blood inside my veins.' Or something like that." He shrugged.

"Looks like I'm going to enjoy my first Opera." Jude smiled at Kyle who smiled back.

Later, when Danny and Sam were walking back to their apartment holding hands, through the dark streets, bathed in moonlight, he decided to ask her what if she had noticed anything strange between her friends.

"I thought you wouldn't notice." She grinned, looking up to him with a naughty smile that sent shivers down Danny's spine. "They were flirting."

Now, Danny was brought from heaven to hell in mere seconds in a stomach dropping fall. What he witnessed tonight was two men flirting!

"Yeah…" Sam noticed his surprise and smiled. "I told you there wasn't a reason to be jealous. I'm playing the cupid."

"I don't know if I'm happy or disgusted." Danny said, getting hit in the arm. "Hey, that hurt."

"Now, don't you dare say things like that! That's very rude. I didn't know you had prejudices." She really looked offended by his reaction, but Danny didn't want to waste any time arguing. He was too happy to even think how he could defend himself at the moment. He felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The only two men that could steal Sam away from him were in love with each other.

"Sam…" He said, quietly on her ear, making her shiver. "Te voglio bene assai…(1)"

Could life be more perfect?

(1) I love you very much.

**Well, I'm back, I had a lot of fun working in the movie, had lot of pictures taken and made a bunch of new friends, but FINALLY I'm back here to work in the fanfic. I loved all your reviews, by the way, I'm glad to know you guys like this story as much as I do. I'm just sorry to inform you that this story is almost finished. Next chapter will be the last, after all Danny's jealousy arc was finished, Sam's addiction arc has been solved and now what's left are just two things: will she stay and will she tell Danny about the baby? That you'll find out the next -and last- chapter. I promise you it'll be veeeeery long. BUT, before I update the next chapter I want to hear what you guys think that will happen. I'm dying to know your opinions! Push the button below and write on, please!**

**Reposted, I just had to correct some minor mistakes. **


	10. Chapter 10

**_Chapter Ten_**

Two Days Before Sam's Departure

Danny was driving his car in the middle of the night in the lonely road. He looked at his side and saw Sam asleep, looking beautiful in her tight dress. That must be the sexiest dress she owned, he had worshiped her the whole night and when she showed up in front of him wearing that his jaw hit the floor. He started at her in astonishment.

"I was really stupid by thinking I'd ever find somebody better." He looked at her again, then decided to pay attention to the road.

Two days was everything he had left with her. Then she'd go away and probably never come back. Her perfume would be forever a memory and it would stay everywhere, in his bed, in his car, in his clothes. When he had first exhaled that perfume that same night, he had to hold back a delighted groan.

Her smile would be a fading picture forever engraved in his mind. He couldn't believe that he was actually going to lose her forever next Sunday. She had been by his side since they were kids, he couldn't even imagine life without knowing she was there next to him.

Stupid philosophy. He couldn't help but think that the main reason why she stood her decision to go away so firmly was because she didn't believe in Love at all. It was HIS fault because he failed to convince her that Love did exist and that was what preciously held them together all those years.

He looked at her again, eyeing every curve, every breath she took, the movement of her lips and chest. He wished he could be forever stuck in that moment with her. He wished the sun wouldn't rise in the horizon and that they would ride in that road silently forever.

But that wasn't possible, was it? She was going away and she DIDN'T trust him enough.

That night, after the Opera had finished and Sam went to the backstage to greet Kyle, Danny was left alone with Jude who, after letting one single tear fall (that frightened Danny beyond comprehension) he dragged Danny to a corner and told him the most disturbing news Danny had ever heard in his life.

_"Danny, I must tell you something very important, but by doing this I'm betraying Sam's trust so you must promise me that you won't yell at her or anything after I tell you." Danny could only nod, not understanding what could be so important. "Okay, so… I think I found the source to Sam's depression…"_

A baby… they had made a baby. Parenthood was one of the things in life he would like to try, but not that soon and still when he heard what Jude had to say he couldn't help but feel like he had gone through a terrible loss. Sam didn't know she was pregnant until she day she lost the baby and Danny fully understood why she wanted to keep it a secret from him. It may sound too noble to some, but that was the way Sam was, she didn't mourn the past.

Before he realized, Danny had tears running down his face. The pain that shot up in this chest of his heart breaking was unbearable. He tried to think of something else. He looked at the sides of the road and noticed the moon shinning in one of the sides of the road. A baby... A BABY!

Somehow he had been so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice they were already in the Lakes region. It was a full moon night and the lake was shinning in a lonely way. Everything was lonely tonight.

Danny crossed the road and pulled the car over, stopping near the sand. He turned the engine off and looked to Sam again, her pale face bathed in moonlight.

He had to make her stay with him, somehow.

Sam opened her eyes when she noticed they had stopped. She yawned and looked around, wondering where they were and when she looked up, she saw that Danny was leaning over her from his seat, staring at her so sadly that she wondered he knew something she didn't.

"Danny-" She could barely speak his name when he bent down and shut her up with a bruising, desperate, kiss.

"I love you." He said against her lips, holding her tightly in his arms as if she was going to slip away. "I love you." He repeated, kissing her out of desperation as if he was daring her to say it back. It didn't matter anymore, as he continued kissing her and she started responding, he forgot all his worries, everything else was obliterated by her warmth, the taste of her lips, her sweet perfume and the softness of her hair.

"Oh, gosh Danny, what's going on?" She broke her lips free from his hungry ones and was able to speak before he interrupted her again. As if she could read his thoughts she understood that the reason why he was so desperate was because she was leaving.

"Marry me!"

For a several seconds Sam was stunned by his sudden request. She stared into his eyes, completely out of any kind of reaction. He knew she was going to refuse, so why did he ask anyway? He was THAT desperate to keep her from going away. She didn't know he hurt that much until she felt his tears wetting her face.

"Oh Danny…" She embraced him in a comforting way, letting him calm down. When he had made the request she had seen ferocity flash in his eyes, but his embrace was so gentle that she succumbed into it without a single analytical thought.

She felt his grip tighten around her waist and suddenly she felt as light as a feather, it was the usual sensation she had wherever Danny made her go intangible. They flew through the car and up into the starry sky. She didn't protest. She continued holding him close to her chest, while he held her by the waist, like a little boy scared to lose his most precious toy.

As her fingers got lost on his hair, her face stared above them. She was near the stars, for a second she felt like if she reached out her hand she'd be able to touch the moon. She smiled and looked down, they were floating above the lake, with tiny sparkling lights that looked like little diamonds.

"Danny, look around us." She said softly, kissing his forehead. He obeyed and opened his eyes, looking above him to see her smiling down at him.

"Beautiful." He smiled sadly.

"I meant the sky. You're so cheesy today." She teased, bending down to kiss his lips softly and lovingly.

"I love you, I want to marry you, I want to have children with you." He said quickly, in desperation. He felt her go rigid under his embrace and slightly pale when he said the last part. It was like confirming what Jude had told him, but he wasn't going to tell her he knew. "Please, give me an answer."

She didn't say a word, she decided that the best way to answer him without making him disappointed was to kiss him and she did, trying to silence his pleas. Danny completely lost his concentration on the flight when she kissed him and Sam felt her stomach dropping, she held him tight when she noticed they were falling.

"Danny!" She squeaked right before they fell on the water. The cold water wasn't enough to make Danny break free from her, he held her close and they both broke into the surface at the same time, laughing at the stupidity they did.

Danny was enchanted by her laughter and she looked so delighted that she looked like the Greek nymphs that inspired the poets to write the most precious works in all literature history. That laughter should be painted in the Sistine Chapel ceiling and nobody should be able to enter in that chapel except him in an endless ritual of adoration. She was Venus, the personification of Beauty.

Danny looked at her in hope when she kissed him again, he recognized that touch; it was caring, tender and surprisingly intense. That's what he described as 'Love'.

Sam realized it, too. The emotions she sensed coming from him and her own emotions that were being born inside her chest so strong that she thought she was going to explode. They kissed fully, sensuously, languidly and torturously slow. That must have been the most beautiful kiss they ever shared.

'If Love exists...' Sam found herself thinking, never separating their lips, 'that's exactly what I'm feeling right now.'

The last hours Danny and Sam had together passed by quicker than every ordinary hour. Danny cursed himself for not being able to skip work, but he would wake two hours earlier and stay up until he couldn't hold his eyes opened anymore. He kicked Tucker out of the flat for the last days; he wanted to spend every minute with her.

But time was cruel and it wouldn't stop at that moment just like it hadn't stopped before. The hardest thing Danny would ever do in his whole life was drive Sam to the airport on the day she had to part. He woke up with the whole world on his bed knowing that at that same night she'd be miles away from him.

"Sammy, wake up." He said, kissing the back of her neck teasingly until she opened her eyes and turned around to hold him close. "We better get up… you don't want to be late."

"But… I just slept two hours." She stirred, turning around and hugging him tightly, trying to memorize the feeling of his skin against hers.

"That, my dear, is as much your fault as it is mine." He grinned, kissing her sadly. In five hours she would be flying all the way across the country, not to return again.

She hadn't even said goodbye to her mother…

Her bags were packed and they were in the living room with all her things inside, she wasn't leaving a single souvenir, nothing to make him remember her. All he had were the pictures they had taken together.

He promised himself he wouldn't cry, that their last hours together would be joyful, but he already pictured himself not being able to hold back his tears.

"I better go take a shower." She said, untangling herself from his arms and standing up, making her way towards the bathroom. He watched her as she walked around the room, happy that she wasn't shy to be naked in front of him anymore. He could admire her sculptural body as she moved around, picking her clothes and underwear.

Inside the bathroom, she let the water fall on her body letting it wash away the sleep and the sweat from their activities a few hours before. He had been incredibly gentle in the last forty-eight hours, he didn't rush into anything, and he would take his time and treasure her like she was a porcelain doll.

"Did I tell you how beautiful you look?" Sam smiled and looked behind her where Danny was standing, preparing to get into the shower with her.

"Did I tell you're a helpless romantic?" She replied, grinning from ear-to-ear.

"I do my best." He grinned back, leaning down and kissing her.

_Did I disappoint you or let you down?  
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?  
'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun,  
Yes I saw you were blinded and I knew I had won._

How could his blue eyes captivate her like that? That was some kind of magnetism in them that would reduce Sam in a pile of goo on the floor.

While she got dressed, Danny just sat on the bed, watching her as if she was performing for him. He was lost in his thoughts while memorizing every single detail of her body. If only he could show her how precious she was to him and convince her to stay he knew his life would be complete.

He knew what he'd have to do to show her how much she meant to him, he knew how to make her stay right beside him, and it was a simple thing to do that would cost greatly.

He prepared himself to tell her he would give up being an astronaut to go with her to L.A.

_So I took what's mine by eternal right.  
Took your soul out into the night.  
It may be over but it won't stop there,  
I am here for you if you'd only care._

Sam finished getting ready and moved to the kitchen, Danny followed her, and they silently cooked a great breakfast, with toast, milk, orange juice pancakes and Danny's favorite syrup. She wanted to spoil him as much as she could.

In her mind she was battling herself. Danny had proved her she was able to Love. She still doubted the origin of that feeling, but she knew that what she was feeling at that moment was what people could call love. In other words, she loved Danny. She finally could say she loved him. She finally knew what Love was.

But she didn't say a word through the whole breakfast and Danny also stayed quiet. The atmosphere was heavy and their eyes desperately tried to say the words their mouths were too stubborn to form.

An hour later, the kitchen was clean, the bed was made and the bags were already in the car. Danny watched fascinated as Sam applied a last detail to her makeup and fixed her blouse, looking like a gorgeous businesswoman. The green color of her tie matched her modest skirt and her delicious par of high heels. He couldn't tell how many nights he had asked her to leave the high heels on.

They lost themselves in another sweet kiss before Sam broke their embrace sadly.

"We better go, I don't want to miss the flight… and I still have to say goodbye to Tucker."

Danny nodded sadly and took her hand, wishing that memories would be as clear as pictures were, that would stay intact even after a hundred years.

_You touched my heart you touched my soul.  
You changed my life and all my goals.  
And love is blind and that I knew when,  
My heart was blinded by you._

The pain of separation fell upon them as Danny parked the car in front of the park. Sam was surprised he hadn't forgotten their promise. Their last kiss was going to be in the park, in front of the lake, under their tree, the exactly same place where they had their first kiss.

"We promised…" He said, getting her hand on his and leading her towards the tree of yellow flowers that had full blossomed.

"Is it… really going to be our last kiss, Danny?" Sam asked quietly, as he leaned closer to her.

"I hope not." He said, sadly, "But I guess… since you're not coming back." He closed his eyes and tried to kiss her, but she stepped back, putting a single finger on his lips.

"What if we don't kiss here?" She said, almost hopefully. "If we have our last kiss here as we promised it will be like sealing the end of our relationship. What if we let it open? What if we just… pretend it's not over?" She tried, her eyes almost betrayed her and showed him how desperate she was to not let go.

Danny smiled and held her close to him. These probably were the best lines she had ever said to him. He was overwhelmed by happiness when she said that. To him it meant she wasn't giving up on him… on _them_.

"Okay… we started with pretend, so we better end with it, too." He grinned. He kissed her forehead and brushed a few yellow flowers that had fallen on her hair. "We better go to the airport, then, Tucker must be waiting for us there."

She silently agreed and they walked hand in hand back to the car.

_I've kissed your lips and held your hand.  
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.  
I know you well, I know your smell.  
I've been addicted to you.  
_

Danny helped her with the bags and when they were sent to the airplane they still had half an hour before she had to go on board. They were silent and avoided looking at each other in the face.

"Sam!" She heard a familiar voice call and she turned around to see Tucker running towards them.

"Tucker!" She called back, hugging him tightly. He held her until her feet wouldn't touch the ground anymore. Tucker opened his eyes and saw Danny frowning at them and immediately put her back on the ground.

"Hey, dude, I know she's taken." Tucker laughed. "I brought some friends, too." Tucker turned around to let Danny and Sam to see some people standing behind him.

_Goodbye my lover.  
Goodbye my friend.  
You have been the one.  
You have been the one for me.  
_

Sam's father was there to say his farewell, also Kyle and Jude (both looking extremely handsome and getting a few glances from the girls that passed by them). She felt tears streaming down her face when she saw the sight before her. All the boys of her life had come to say goodbye.

She held her father, who wished her all the happiness in the world; that she was welcome back in case she got lonely. Kyle also held her, giving her a small card with his phone number. Jude held her close, placing a kiss on her cheek (that made Danny shiver with anger).

_I am a dreamer and when i wake,  
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take.  
And as you move on, remember me,  
Remember us and all we used to be_

After she hugged everyone she felt Danny's hand slip in hers and he gently guided her to the gate from where the flight would leave. He saw she was wearing the necklace he gave her, the class ring he had asked her to keep that had her name engraved and in the other hand the diamond ring Kyle had given her years ago. She was wearing everything that would make her remember them.

'If she says anything about us…' Danny thought 'anything at all I'll tell her I'll go with her, all she needs to do is to give me a sign that she wants me to go and I'll give up my whole future for her… this is true love whether she believes it or not.'

'I must tell him the three words he wanted to hear all these years…' Sam thought, looking up into his loving face. 'He said it so many times and now that I'm sure of it, I must tell him… why is it so difficult to form those words?'

'Come on Sam… give me a sign, anything will do. Just tell me you care about me that you won't forget me and I'll know you want me to go… please… say something!' He mentally begged, but his body didn't move, he kept looking at her face sadly, as if he was saying goodbye for a few days.

_I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile.  
I've watched you sleeping for a while.  
I'd be the father of your child.  
I'd spend a lifetime with you._

'If I say "I love you, Danny" I won't be able to walk away…' Sam cried mentally, her heart was aching with need to finally say what she took years to realize, but she didn't know it was so difficult to hurt her analytical pride just to say that. 'I want to stay…' She finally realized, letting a single tear fall. 'I want to stay with him. I can find work in Amity Park, can't I? I can marry him like he wants… and then… he'll go to NASA… we'll have to break up anyway!'

She let her head fall and felt his arms embracing her one last time. She would do anything to be forever in those arms.

'I love you… please let's me go with you.' Danny caressed her head, kissing her temple gently, not saying a single word. His mind was screaming at him.

'I love you, Danny, I have to say it. Let me stay with you! Don't go to space! Stay with me! I love you. I LOVE YOU.'

_I know your fears and you know mine.  
We've had our doubts but now we're fine,  
And I love you, I swear that's true.  
I cannot live without you.  
_

"So…" Danny finally worked up the courage to speak. 'Say something, Sam, please.'

"So…" She repeated, looking up to him and breaking their embrace, suddenly feeling she had to be strong for him. "… I guess this is goodbye."

Danny let go the breath he didn't know he was holding. That was it. She didn't want him to go with her.

"You better go…" He said, looking at the gate as the last people entered the plane. "You're going to miss your flight."

"Yeah…" She smiled, holding her tears. She wasn't going to say those words. He didn't expect her to. It was clear in his eyes that he had accepted their destinies. She stood on her toes, kissing him sweetly on the lips.

_Goodbye my lover.  
Goodbye my friend.  
You have been the one.  
You have been the one for me._

"Daniel Fenton…" She said through their touching lips. Then she broke the kiss and stepped away from him. "… it was a pleasure." Then she turned and walked to the gate. Finally, when he was out of her eyesight her tears streamed down her face. 'Don't look back, Sam… he can't see your tears… don't ruin it.'

Danny stood there, not minding his own tears. He couldn't believe what was happening. Everything was in slow motion to him, it was like dying inside. He remembered when they first met, her cute pink dress which she hated, he remembered when she held his hands while he was under Ember's spell. He remembered how beautiful she looked in the ancient Egypt outfit, how he hated when she kissed Gregor, how she kissed him under the tree to fool the photographers. He remembered their first time, their last time, and all the times in between them.

That girl was part of his life, a part that she was taking with her to that plane. He slowly watched the way she moved, how graciously she gave the ticket to the stewardess and how she walked on board without looking back at him.

_And I still hold your hand in mine.  
In mine when I'm asleep.  
And I will bare my soul in time,  
When I'm kneeling at your feet._

The plane's door closed and Danny walked towards the glass window to see it take off. He leaned his forehead against the glass somehow too weak to keep his head up. The engines started, the plane slowly began to move away from the platform.

Danny's heart was being squeezed inside his chest. The plane arrived at the landing area and started speeding up… two minutes later the tires left the ground and the plane was flying towards the horizon, taking the only woman he had ever loved away from him.

And she had never said she loved him back.

_Goodbye my lover.  
Goodbye my friend.  
You have been the one.  
You have been the one for me._

Danny had a feeling that music was never going to be the same now. He was never going to be able to listen to Opera without crying.

He looked at the plane until it disappeared. He couldn't stay at the airport any longer, he was going to break down any moment now and he had to be alone.

He turned around and took two steps away from the glass window when his cell phone beeped. Normally he'd have ignored it, but somehow he knew he had to answer it now.

He picked the phone from his pocket and read in the screen 'you've got a text message from Sam'. His heart beat even faster now and he opened the message.

His eyes filled up with tears that he didn't hold back. His knees grew weak and he sat down on the floor, not able to hold himself up.

In the small cell phone screen, written in pale lilac in a bubble format font was the words he had longed to hear since he met her.

"_I love you, Danny. I always will."_

_I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.  
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow.  
I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.  
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow._

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Tucker staring at him holding back his own tears.

Danny couldn't believe it.

It was the end.

Wasn't it?

**- author hides fearing a painful death -**


	11. Epilogue

_**Epilogue**_

10 Years After...

"You will interview an astronaut tonight." The director of the TV Talk Show Sam presented every Saturday night on ABC in the past five years. She had the most watched Talk Show in America.

"I interview artists... intelligent ones, might I say." Sam smiled at her director who didn't flinch.

"He's smart. It's your chance to talk to him about the depression after happiness theory you wanted to talk about for years now. Ask him about the sadness to return to Earth and things like that. Just don't forget that the main subject is Space." The director quickly made his way to the cabin where he'd would watch the show.

Sam shook her head and walked into the stage, making sure her clothes were perfect. The wardrobe girl, Jessica, was waiting for her in a chair to check her hair.

"Hey, Jessica." Sam smiled at the girl, who smiled back happily.

"Hello Sam. So, have you heard about the cutie you'll interview today?" She asked, spraying something in Sam's hair that smelled like peaches.

"Cute you say?" Sam rolled her eyes. "You're such a girl."

"While I was checking his clothes he asked me if I knew you." Jessica said, grinning when Sam lifted her eyes suspiciously. "He said he missed you."

"Missed me?" Sam asked confused.

"He's an old friend of yours... or so he said."

"Friend!" Sam barely had the time to stop Jessica from walking away, the director called on the lights and the sound team for last check ups in the equipment.

"We're on in 5... 4... 3..."

Sam's heart was beating wildly inside her chest. It couldn't be him. It was impossible. Okay... she had to calm down, breathe and act professional.

"... 2... 1..."

"Good evening America and today we have a special guest here." Sam read the lines she had read previously in her dressing room. Only this time she actually paid attention to what she was reading. "To our NASA special week we brought to you straight from space the austronaut Daniel Fenton, who just recently returned from a long journey. He spent one whole year in the Columbia III spaceship that was monitoring space."

Sam stood up from her chair and walked to the middle of the stage, the lights following her, to welcome the astronaut into his first live night in a TV Show. Her heart was beating wildly inside her chest. 'Danny actually made it to space!'

He walked into stage in a way that for Sam it looked like he was in slow motion. His black hair was glistening, thanks to Jessica's well-done job. His blue eyes looked the same and as soon as he lifted his eyes to stare at her lilac ones, Sam knew it was really him. The boy to whom she had locked her heart and given the key. Her breathe caught in her throat and she - for a second - thought she was going to embarrass herself on live TV.

He had grown a lot. Now even with her high heels she was still as high as his chest. His shoulders looked larger. He built himself up. He looked strong. He smiled down at her and his smile was the same she remembered.

After what seemed years in silence, Danny reached out for her hand and kissed it sweetly.

"I'm delighted to be here, ma'am."

_Always the gentleman_...

"Welcome Mr. Fenton." She smiled at him, leading him to the couch he was supposed to sit, in front of her transparent desk. That desk was one of the reasons why the show was watched religiously every Saturday. The transparency of the desk had the purpose to let the world see her legs while she talked about some boring subject, too difficult to people her age to comprehend. But her legs! They had been in tabloids. They had made her famous. Nowadays Sam hoped they weren't the reason why people kept watching her show.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Manson." He said in his deep manly voice that Sam could barely recognize.

"The pleasure is mine, dear." She said, hearing the director's voice speak in her ear-phones telling her to start the interview and stop the long silent pauses. "Well, let's start with you talking a bit about your past. Let us know a little about the man behind the astronaut."

"Well..." He smiled at her. He didn't look at the camera or the lights, or the director assistant once... it had been the first time in the show a guest didn't look anywhere beside the one who was interviewing him. That sent shivers down Sam's spine. "I was raised in a small town called Amity Park. I never got very good grades. I was a 'C' student as my best friend used to call me. I went to college in my own city (not Harvard as many may think) and from there I started working in the Axion Labs, that helped me when I applied into NASA nine years ago."

Danny noticed Sam's eyes as he talked... her eyes stared deeply into his, like windows to read her soul, he could see what she was thinking, she was remembering everything they had been through. She was having the time to notice the pain his absence caused. He knew that if she wasn't following the instructions of the director she'd be crying by now. He could see the tears slowly builting their way to her eyes.

He continued talking, he looked around him. The blinding lights around him made everyone invisible. Nothing could be seen aside Sam, they were in the middle of the stage and at the moment they couldn't reach out to hold each other. Her job depended on this. He had to control himself.

As he talked he noticed her biting her lips. Those beautiful lips he hadn't kissed in ten years. He loved her and he knew she loved him. Their love couldn't be erased by time and they both realized it now. It was something that was going to be there forever. Even when they weren't together and the fire of their passion had dissolved to a warm ember, just a glance or even a memoy could reawake the fire and burn them both to ashes.

"Tell us about the skies, Danny-el." Sam quickly corrected herself and nobody noticed her slip of tongue beside Danny himself. "What did you feel prior your flight?"

"I was anxious." Danny laughed and scratched his nape. "I wasn't afraid to die or anything, I just wanted to complete the mission I looked forward to since I was a kid. It felt like I was dying inside. I was finally doing what I always wanted to. I even gave up some very important things... and people... to go out there."

"How was... 'out there' like?" Sam asked quietly, her voice fading to a whisper.

"Beautiful." Danny said. "And lonely."

"Just like..."

"... a romantic poem."

"And the colors 'out there' were..."

"Unique. Like a renaissance painting only using the purest colors."

Their eyes were communicating things their mouth could never perform in that stage. Danny knew what she wanted him to answer and she knew he understood her every question with just a glance. Like lovers, they no longers needed words to tell each other what they were feeling.

"The colors are so bright they are like gem stones." Danny said. "The atmosphere is a thin blue line. The clouds are so white it actually hurts to look at them. There are sunrises and sunsets every forty-five minutes and they're spectacular. There are millions stars our sky block and out there you can actually see all those. They're like little diamonds."

"Talk about how he felt when he returned to Earth!" The director shouted in Sam's ear, making her return to her business-like posture. "And get into the depression theory."

"So," Sam sat up straight. "It looks like an unique experience, but how did you feel when you returned to Earth? Were glad to be back or did you feel depressed you were leaving all that beauty up there?"

"I felt my happiest when I set my foot on the ground again." Danny smiled gently at her.

"Weren't you sad the dream was over? That you left the beauty up there?" Sam asked.

"Not at all." Danny grinned, standing up from the couch. He didn't know it was against the rules of the show and the camera had a hard time following his sudden movement. "I didn't leave the beauty up there. Actually, I left the most beautiful thing I've ever seen right here on Earth and I'm glad I'm back to reclaim it." He leaned over her desk, he could almost hear Sam's heart beating in her chest. Her eyes widened and the director was screaming on her ear for her to call the commencials and make him sit down. "The most beautiful thing... is a wild rose I met."

"You're not going back to space then?" She asked quietly, looking up into his eyes ready to burst into tears.

"I resigned my position as an astronaut. I've done what I wanted to do and now I'm here to stay. I wouldn't trade the colors of her eyes for a million stars or the gem stones colors I've seen there. I'd rather have one cloudy sunset each day than hundreds of it up there without her." Their kisses had been like fires. Every memory of their kiss was a like diamond itself. The brightest and purest colors had been created by themselves everytime they held each other.

"You did what you had to do..."

They had been more than they could ever be not because they gave up on each other to follow their carriers, but because the memory of their moments together had always been there to make them stronger and to raise them up when they fell so they could take one more step towards a future together.

Now the future had arrived for them.

"... and now I'm back..."

The unextingueshed fire was there in their eyes again. It was a good thing to not finish their relationship with a kiss under their tree, Sam concluded. Leaving their hearts open to each other was the best thing they did because now they could start over. Maybe the best part of goodbyes was that it would eventually bring a new beginning.

"I'm glad." Sam whispered.

The lights were turned off and the show ended. The pretending ended and finally their lives began.

**Ha, you guys didn't really think I was going to give it a sad ending, did you? It's still sad they didn't see each other for ten years and I can't say this epilogue was a happy even after, but at least they met again... **

**Anyway, I have a new story Redemption and it's going to be up soon. It's a Danny x Sam x Dan sexy triangle. I noticed nobody actually likes Dan, even though I think he's totally hot so I'm giving him a change in that story.**

**The first chapter will be up in a few days.**

**Thanks for reading this fic. I love you all!**


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